Breakfast Egg Cups

Breakfast Egg Cups

These breakfast cups are sure to impress and are easy to assemble once you get the hang of it! It's all about layering with the ingredients. My recipe is adapted from joyofbaking.com. Since I am always tight for time, I modified the ingredients, using cooked ham and parmesan petals, to save preparation time. They can be prepared ahead on the night before, covered and stored in the fridge so that I can catch a bit more sleep the next morning. Made these first time on Mothers' Day for Erik's mom. She loved them and went out to get her own jumbo muffin pan after that!

Utensils

6-cup jumbo muffin tray (preferable)
Pastry brush
Small microwave safe bowl
Rolling pin
Wooden cutting board
Bread knife and chef knife

Ingredients

9 pieces white sandwich bread
6 fresh large eggs
3 large rectangular pieces of cooked ham or any cured cold cuts of your choice
2 tablespoons of finely chopped red bell pepper
3 tablespoons of chopped fresh chives
1/3 cups of crumbled parmesan petals or any other shredded cheese of your choice
1 tablespoon unsalted/salted butter (melted)
Salt and black pepper to taste

Method

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Place butter in a small microwave safe bowl and heat until just melted. Using the pastry brush, brush butter onto the inside of muffin tray and cover the base and sides of the cups completely. Set aside for use until bread and ham are ready.

Trim off all the 4 sides of the bread.

Place each piece of bread on the cutting board and flatten it with a rolling pin. Then cut 6 pieces diagonally into 12 large triangles. Cut the remaining 3 pieces into smaller triangles making 12 small triangles in all.
Place 2 large triangles of bread into each cup with the base of the triangle towards the bottom. Arrange each piece against the sides of the cup with each piece facing opposite one another. Press the four touching tips of the triangles together. Then to cover the bottom of the cup completely, form a square piece of bread by placing the bases of two smaller pieces of triangles facing each other and pressing them to the bottom of the cup and along the sides, making sure that the whole cup is completely covered with bread.

Cut the cooked ham or any cured cold cuts of your choice longitudinally into half. Trim both ends into triangular shape. *Do make sure the trimmed pieces are long enough to drape the bottom and up the sides of the cup. Keep the end pieces; line each cup with one piece of the cut ham. Use up the end pieces to line the bottom of the cup after you have lined the cup with ham.

Divide and sprinkle chopped chives into each cup on top of the ham.

Divide, crumble and place the parmesan or shredded cheese of your choice into each cup.

Crack one egg into each cup after you have placed the chives and parmesan.

Divide and decorate each cup with finely chopped red bell pepper.

Lightly sprinkle the top with salt and black pepper.

Place the muffin tray into the pre-heated oven for 10 minutes at 350 degrees F.

Reduce the temperature of the oven to 300 degrees F for another 10 minutes. Remove from oven immediately! Place on a rack to cool slightly before serving.

*Please note: If you wish the eggs to be runny, remove from the oven once the egg whites becomes opaque while the yolks are still jiggly. You will have to keep watch!
Otherwise, 20 minutes will yield eggs that are firm but not overdone.

Every oven is different, so please adjust accordingly and watch the contents while baking.

Enjoy and impress!!!