Baked "Italian" meatballs

With the need to increase my weight by 10 pounds, i find myself searching for food that is more weighty. What an irony! Anyway, 80% lean ground beef is on sale. So I get 2 pounds, separate them into a pound each, and start trying out two experiments on Italian meatballs. (To be honest, I've never seen such a thing in Italy. But then, by whatever name it goes, it's still meatball.) What I notice is that the ground beef with 20% fat really makes good meatballs. The fat gets drained during the baking, leaving a crisp elastic lump of meat. I also discover that the meatball mixture must be relatively dry. Otherwise, the meatballs may collapse while baking.

Recipe: Baked "Italian" meatballs

Ingredients:
- 1 lb 80% lean ground beef
- 3/8 cup 4C plain bread crumbs
- 1/4 cup 1% milk
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tp onion powder
- 1/2 tp garlic powder
- 1/2 tp sugar
- 1/2 tp salt
- 1 tp parsley flakes
- 1/2 tp oregano flakes

Procedure:
1. Flake ground beef to loosen the meat.
2. Mix bread crumbs with onion powder, garlic powder, salt, parsley and oregano. Then soak in milk. Mix to ensure uniform hydration.
3. Add moistened bread crumbs to beef. Add sugar. Mix well by hand.
4. Add an egg. Continue mixing until the meat mixture is homogenous. It takes a few minutes. Do not over-knead.
5. Use fork to loosen the mixture into small bits. Place a scoop of the mixture in the palm and gently shape it into a ball of 1.5" diameter. Do not press too hard, else the meatball will be too dense and heavy.
6. Since the meatballs tend to shrink and flatten a little during baking, this can be compensated by making the meatballs taller in shape before baking. Place the meatballs on a baking tray lined with aluminum foil. Allow a little bit of space between adjacent meatballs.
7. Bake the meatballs at 375F for about 30 minutes. After the first 5-10 minutes, examine the meatballs. Loosen them from the bottom. Roll them around so that the bottom side is turned upward. Do so every 10 minutes.
8. Fat from the meat will come out. Allow the meatballs to fry in the hot oil until browned.
9. When done, take out of the pan and place on paper towel to drain of excess fat.
10. Freeze when cooled.

Results:

Attempt 1

The mixture:

The meat mixture loosely pressed together into a ball:

The meatballs ready to bake:

The meatballs baked, giving out plenty of fat, and slightly collapsed:

Meatballs done, observe that they have collapsed slightly:

Attempt 2

The mixture has been kneaded more vigorously:

The meatballs are made taller so that they can withstand the collapse in height during baking:

Meatballs baking, flipped to allow more uniform browning:

Meatballs done:

Interior of a meatball:

I'm learning some techniques on baking meatballs through this experiment.
1. To make meat balls, ground meat with some fat (such as 20%) is better than very low-fat meat. Low-fat meat gives very tough meatballs.
2. The meat mixture should be rather dry before baking. Else, the meatballs may collapse during baking. The ratio of ingredients in this recipe is pretty good.
3. Do not roll the meat balls too hard, else they'd become very tough. But do not let the mixture be too loosely held together, else they may fall apart.