Recipe: Exploding Egg Cups

Breakfast is a big deal in our house. Adam and I both feel very strongly that a hot breakfast is important to get the day started right. This is a favorite with my kids, and they are the ones who named them exploding egg cups. I’ve seen variations of this recipe everywhere, but the trouble I had with every version I tried was the egg yolks were always overcooked by the time the whites were set, and the whole point of the recipe is the runny yolk. I started experimenting with time and temperature. The key is a lower temperature. Obviously this will vary from oven to oven, so you may have to experiment with yours.

We eat bacon about once a week, so I always make a double batch and save one for this breakfast a few days later. This makes for a really fast meal that way. It’s awesome over toast, over toast and avocado, over toast, avocado and tomatoes, over hash browns and/or avocado for a gluten free option, or just plain. The options are endless.

This is also a great breakfast to let kids help make. My kids are enjoying learning to cook, and they love to make this one. They can spray the cups, wrap the bacon, crack the eggs, all of it, then I pop them in the oven.

Preheat oven to 325 (or if that doesn’t do it, try 300). Grease your muffin tins and wrap the slightly undercooked bacon around the outside. By slightly undercooked I mean still flexible, which to me is undercooked. I like my bacon crispy, and when it comes out of the oven it will be. The bacon doesn’t have to be perfectly touching all the sides of the muffin tin. Crack an egg in each. Bake for 13 minutes. I would start peaking at 12 minutes, but try not to let too much heat escape. Be fast. Pull them out as soon as the whites look set. Be sure and get them all out of the tin immediately (which is not a problem with our family of eight), or they eggs will continue to bake from the heat of the pan. On the rare occasion there was one or two leftover, I was able to reheat them, but it does cook the yolk a little more.