The great eggs-periment day 2: Baked eggs

I should begin this cockamamie year-long egg eating experiment of mine on a grand scale, whipping up souffles of all sorts and gratins and custards and quiches, but I find that I can’t help but begin on a less than spectacular note. I’m in a spartan, contemplative state, what can I say, so for now, I only feel like eating a single egg at a time.

Today I give you baked eggs.

The recipe, which comes from Joy of Cooking, called for lining a ramekin with a bit of butter. I don’t have a ramekin, nor do I know what that is, so I substituted a muffin pan, two cups of which I sprayed with Pam (trying to cut down on the butter lately). I dusted the bottom of each cup with a sprinkling of salt and pepper, then added a cracked egg.

The yolk of a farm-fresh egg is brilliant gold. You can’t find that color yolk in a grocery store, I’m afraid. It means that it comes from hens on a diet high in protein (our hens eat a lot of bugs).

I then added a teaspoon of cream and a half teaspoon of butter.

Curiously, the recipe didn’t call for whisking the ingredients together. So being the tortured recipe follower that I am, I didn’t. I popped them in a preheated 350 degree oven for 18 minutes.

After baking, I turned the muffin pan upside down over a plate to see if the egg would slide out on its own. It did not. So I helped it along with a spoon. It came out clean, which is always a pleasant surprise.

The verdict: Baked eggs are exactly like fried eggs only….they’re baked, so the white part is fluffy and puffy. But baked eggs aren’t any faster to prepare (it’s about 15 minutes longer to be exact), and they require just as much cleanup. Still, I enjoyed eating my first baked egg…I especially liked that I could eat it with my hands. Can’t say the same for a fried egg.