Materials and Methods: Eggs-perimenting!

For the past few weeks I've been in recipe and blog development mode, and preparing for the AIDS WALK NY Launch Party this month. (To make a donation go here, to join the Cake Walkers walking team go here)

One of the recent changes you will notice is the addition of the "Materials and Methods" tab at the top of the page. This tab leads to my Pinterest Boards, where you will find that I am moderately addicted to pinning... :) Pinterest allows you to share and find ideas, inspiration and techniques among other things... Thus far, I have created a number of boards for recipe development, cake and cupcake decoration, DIY event and baking projects, food science and other things I find interesting.

While anyone can join in on the pinning fun, and follow my boards by clicking on the red "P" icon at the top of the blog, you can now click on the "Materials and Methods" tab to check out my recent pins .

One of the recent pins I came across was that of baking eggs, which reminded me of my own eggs-perimenting using a microwave...

Image from Pinterest Post on Baking Eggs

On one very lazy morning,  I decided that I wanted boiled eggs for breakfast. I was running late, so I got the "bright" idea to boil the eggs in the microwave... I filled a ceramic bowl with water, plopped two eggs inside and programed two minutes on the microwave. I peered in through the microwave window while it cooked and quickly removed the bowl when the time was up. Everything seemed copacetic... I noticed that one of the eggs had cracked, exposing its cooked contents, much like what may happen on a stove. “Could this be? ONLY two minutes to boil an egg in the microwave?” I thought in disbelief.  Just to be sure, I decided to add a little more water and nuke them for another minute.

When it was done I ran them under cold water and began shelling the one that was already cracked. I sliced through it and was elated! A perfectly cooked egg! :D  Eagerly, I picked up the other egg and broke the shell. I was not prepared for what happened next...

As I began to shell the egg... POOF!!!!!!!! It exploded! IN MY FACE! (I definitely should have had some goggles on...)  The scene in my kitchen was indescribable. Who would have thought that one egg could make such a mess! I was cleaning up egg from corners in my kitchen that I didn’t even know existed!  Needless to say, I was late for work... Like my father always says “more haste, less speed...”

But as I cleaned up and began to ponder why only it exploded, and what caused it to explode... The only logical explanation I could come up with is that the uncracked egg retained an enormous amount of pressure since none of its membranes had been broken. When I cracked the egg all of the pent-up pressure caused the explosion. Had I seen that post about baking eggs sooner... Well, I would have saved a lot of elbow grease.

I tried baking an egg this morning and it was not too bad at all. I left it in the oven for about 25 minutes, which I later realized was too long. When I cracked the shell the cooked egg was brown (because I baked it too long of course) and was fully cooked. The only disappointment was that the white was a bit rubbery... I will probably put it in for 15 - 20 minutes next time... All that to say, baking an egg is a decent alternative to boiling one.