Abstract: Cracked eggs are eggs with cracks on the surfaces of egg shells. The procedure in developed countries is usually to divert eggs with cracks, chips or breaks (which encourage bacteria to pass through the shell) away from the human food supply. But in developing countries such as Nigeria, they are sorted and sold at about half the prices of whole un-cracked eggs. The presence of cracks on egg shells was found to significantly (P < 0.05) increase the load of bacterial groups such as salmonellae, pseudomonads, staphylococci and coliforms examined. No organisms were isolated from un-cracked egg samples at purchase. Salmonellae were not detected in samples of cracked on days one and two; neither were they found in the un-cracked eggs throughout the experiment. A total of 17 bacterial isolates belonging to 13 genera were identified from the samples. Bacillus licheniformis and Micrococcus spp were only isolated from the shells while Bacillus subtilis, Enterobacter, Proteus mirabilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella enteritidis, Salmonella typhii, Serratia spp., Shigella spp, Staphylococcus epidermidis and Streptococcus feacalis were isolated from cracked eggs alone. Aeromonas, Alcaligenes Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas fluorescens and Staphylococcus aureus were found on both eggs and the shells of samples examined. No organisms were isolated from cakes baked with both cracked and un-cracked egg samples. Steaming for 20 to 30 minutes was effective in removing pseudomonads and staphylococci but not coliforms while steaming for 30 minutes totally removed salmonellae from un-cracked egg samples. It was observed that frying did not remove any of the groups of bacteria examined from the egg samples. Based on the findings in this study, the use of cracked eggs for baking purposes alone is recommended.