Over-egg the cake/pudding

Origin of: Over-egg the cake/pudding

Over-egg the cake/pudding

To over-embellish, exaggerate or spoil something dates from the late 20th century and the allusion is to baking where adding too many eggs can spoil the cake or pudding. The idiom is sometimes misused as over-egg the omelette. As any cook knows, over-egging an omelette only increases its size and does not necessarily spoil it.