Individual Baked Eggs: An easy breakfast your kiddos can make themselves
Mardi Michels shares her recipe for a morning fave that’s as simple to customize as it is to make
This recipe in Mardi Michels’ new cookbook In the French Kitchen with Kids caught our eye for two big reasons (neither of which was our overwhelming desire to dunk a slice of fresh bread into the egg’s gooey yolk, though that’s certainly a draw as well). First, this single-serving dish is ideal for anyone who’s having breakfast solo and doesn’t want leftovers. Second, it’s simple enough to follow that total novices can still get in on the fun — even your little ones. Of course, that’s all by design, since Michels, a Toronto-based teacher and writer, spends much of her school year coaching students as young as seven on culinary basics through recipes just like this one. Check out more of Michels’ tips for cooking with kids here, and scroll down for her full recipe.
Individual Baked Eggs | oeufs en cocotte
By Mardi Michels
Like omelettes, this is much more of a weekend or brunch dish as opposed to an everyday breakfast, but I wanted to include it just because I love the name of this dish (so much fun to say!). It’s a great, easier alternative to soft-boiled eggs with toast soldiers for breakfast and it’s also easy to customize.
Ingredients
- ½ tbsp unsalted butter, for greasing ramekin
- 3 cherry tomatoes, cut into quarters
- 2 tbsp heavy (35%) cream
- 1 tsp freshly grated cheese of your choosing
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp freshly chopped basil
- Flaky sea salt, for seasoning
- Freshly ground black pepper, for seasoning
- Thin slices of bread, for dipping
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 425˚F.
Generously grease a ½ cup (125 mL) ramekin.
Place the tomato quarters in the ramekin and pour the cream over them. Sprinkle the cheese on top of the cream and tomatoes. Crack the egg over top, being careful not to break the yolk.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the egg white is cooked. The yolk will still be runny. Sprinkle the fresh basil over the top of the ramekin, season with salt and pepper and serve with thin slices of bread for dipping.
Note: This is an excellent recipe for beginner cooks. They’ll practice greasing ramekins, chopping tomatoes, measuring cream, cracking eggs, chopping basil leaves (they can do this with kitchen scissors too), grating cheese and assembling their dish from start to finish.
Excerpted from In the French Kitchen with Kids by Mardi Michels. Copyright © 2018 Mardi Michels. Published by Appetite by Random House®, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.