Weekends and holidays are meant for brunch, and my simple Baked Eggs with Gruyere are delightfully cozy with pasture-raised eggs from Contented Hen. Their high-quality eggs are from free-range hens hatched right on the company’s Midwest farms.
I picked up a dozen of their eggs at Trader Joe’s, and I immediately knew they would come in handy for this simple dish. I liked this dish, also known as Shirred Eggs, because you don’t really have to do much mixing, stirring or even fussing with anything. It’s a series of simple dump-into-a-ramekin steps that results in a warm, runny yolk that’s perfectly paired with toast for dipping up the goodness.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 4 Contented Hen eggs
- ¼ cup heavy cream
- ¼ cup shredded gruyere
- Sea salt
- Cracked black pepper
- Fresh chives, diced
- Water
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. While oven is preheating, bring a small saucepan of water to a boil.
Use butter to generously coat the inside of four 8-ounce ramekins. Crack an egg into each greased ramekin.
Add 1 tablespoon heavy cream to each ramekin. Season each with sea salt and cracked black pepper. Sprinkle each with a pinch of chopped chives and about 1 tablespoon fresh-shredded gruyere.
Gently place the ramekins into a glass baking dish. Carefully pour boiling water into the larger baking dish until water reaches halfway up the ramekins.
Place in the preheated oven and cook for 12 to 16 minutes, until eggs are cooked to your liking. I prefer the lower end of the timeframe, at which point the eggs should have a runny yolk and just-firm white.
Notes
Alternatively, you can bake without the water bath – just place the ramekins directly on the oven rack or a baking sheet. I find the steam from a water bath adds a little fluff to the egg whites.
