Baked or Shirred Eggs

I'm running out of options! My choices are not only limited by ingredients, but by what I need to cook or eat with.

I've packed all my dishes except 1 coffee cup and...I have a plastic wine glass for water.  It makes me feel kind of special, like I'm at a wedding :) All my pots and pans are packed away also, leaving me with an angel food cake pan that wouldn't fit nicely in the box with the other pans and a square pyrex baking dish.

So...I have all the fixings for making bread products, a bunch of spices, and a few pans, but I can't live on bread alone. I've already made 2 Sally Lunn cakes (well..technically 3, since I ate one before taking pictures) and the Canadian Cheese Supper Ring...I figure it's time to use up some eggs before next Saturday when I do the 'BIG MOVE'.

While I don't have any custard cups, I do have a bunch of very cute 1/4 cup mason jars that can be heated in the oven. So...Baked or Shirred Eggs it is!

The ingredients are pretty simple; eggs, butter, salt, and pepper.

Since I've packed almost everything that can be used to melt butter, I put 1 teaspoon of butter into each mason jar and let the butter melt in a hot water bath. It works well and actually saves having to clean another dish.

Crack the egg in to the dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and dab with a bit more butter...since the teaspoon of butter previously wasn't enough!

Pop them in to a 350 F oven for approximately 15 minutes.

This recipe comes from the Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic CookBook (1950). There are 6 additional variations for this recipe (cheese, chicken livers (YUCK! Nope, not trying!), pork sausage, roquefort baked eggs, eggs a la suisse, and eggs in mustard sauce) that I'll get around to trying at some point, but sadly...not while in Toronto.

Keeper: Yes Siree :)  The eggs were yummy and what could be better than making eggs that you don't have to babysit.

Baked or Shirred Eggs
Culinary Arts Encyclopedic Cookbook - 1950  (pg 289)



INGREDIENTS

• 6 or 12 eggs
• butter
• salt
• pepper

DIRECTIONS

1. Melt 1 teaspoon of butter in each custard cup.
2. Break 1 or 2 eggs in to each cup.
3. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and dot with butter.
4. Bake in moderate oven (350 F) until eggs are firm but not hard, approximately 15 minutes.
5. Serve in the cups.

Canadian Cheese Supper Ring

"Could be Canada's spotlight quick bread - combination of her native products"

Yummy in my tummy!

I'm more of a savory kind of girl, so for me, this works. At first I wasn't too sure about the addition of curry in the recipe, but it turned out well. I don't really know if you need to add it though, since I'm not 100% sure I can even taste it with the 'nippy cheese', but I like how it coloured the dough.

On that note,  I cheated a wee bit on the recipe.

My cheese wasn't super 'nippy'. All I had was a blend of pre-shredded cheese (Mozza and Cheddar) that I had in the freezer. So, I sprinkled a few chili flakes along with a tiny amount (1/4 tsp or less) of chili powder onto the cheese ... and I used butter instead of shortening. Hey now! I'm moving! My house is a mess and I don't want to buy more ingredients.

My verdict: It was yummy, easy, and attractive looking.

I'm going to add this recipe as a 'Keeper', I can imagine the possibilities with pizza fixings or cooked chicken and feta perhaps. Mmmmmm. I wouldn't be embarrassed to serve it to guests.

Lets get started and gather up the ingredients!

Add the 3 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp curry powder to 2 cups sifted Robin Hood flour (It is a Robin Hood flour recipe after all). The recipe says to sift it all together, but I just stirred it with a fork. Haha, I'm lazy that way when making simple biscuits and things.

Add the butter (shortening) and blend in with a pastry blender or knives. I just used my fingertips. Blend in until mealy (grainy) feeling.

Add in the milk and stir gently with a fork until blended. It was a bit sticky at this point for me, so I dumped it out onto a floured surface.

After sprinkling the top with flour, pat down into a rectangle shape about 1/3 inch thick.  The directions mention adding the cheese, rolling and then moving to a baking sheet, but for me, it seemed more stable putting the dough on the greased cookie sheet first.

Sprinkle with cheese (optional chili flakes and a bit of chili powder).

Roll along the long end, like a jelly roll. Join the ends together in a circle. I stuck one side into the other so that the cheese mix was a bit more evenly distributed otherwise, the joining section would have more dough and less cheese. If that odd sentence makes any sense!

Cut the dough, every 2 inches around the outside, leaving the dough intact along the inner edge.

Once cut, gently twist each section on its side.

And bake, 450 F for 15 - 20 minutes....and...wait for it... Voila!

Canadian Cheese Supper Ring
Robin Hood Flour Cookbook 1947 - 1953  (pg 49)

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups sifted Robin Hood flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp curry powder
• 3/4 cup + 2 Tbsp milk
• 4 tbsp butter
• 2/3 cup 'nippy' cheese

DIRECTIONS

1. Grease large cookie sheet.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and curry.
3. Cut shortening (butter) in to small pieces and add to dry ingredients.
4. Blend together until mixture is mealy, using pastry blender (or two knives, cutting in a scissor-like motion).
5. Gradually add the milk, stirring lightly with a fork.  Mix only until a soft dough is formed.
6. Turn on to lightly floured bakeboard or pastry cloth and knead gently for 10 seconds.
7. Gently roll out with floured rolling pin or pat out with hand to 1/3 inch thickness to form rectangle.
8. Sprinkle grated cheese evenly over rectangle.
9. Roll up like a jelly roll.
10. Place on greased cookie sheet and join ends to form a circle.
11. With floured scissors, cut roll in sections about 2 inches apart cutting from the outside of the ring two-thirds of the way towards the centre.
12. Twist each slice slightly on its side so that one cut surface is toward the cookie sheet.
13. Bake at 450 F  (very hot oven) for 15 - 20 minutes.
14. Serve hot

Note: Makes a nice accompaniment for a supper salad. Good with butter and jam.

Who are you Sally Lunn?

My Goal:

Make the Sally Lunn (again) and take pictures before eating it!

Umm...I ate some too and it was just as I remembered - simple and comforting. I feel a mix of pleasure and incredulity that something can have such simple ingredients (with only a 1/4 cup of sugar for any real flavour) and make something I want to make again and again.

Perhaps it's too plain for our modern times, but I can imagine a housewife in the 1940's being quite pleased with the outcome, and proud to place it on her table. I know I would be tickled to be invited over for tea and have this little cake-bread offered up to me.  And if she chose to accompany the cake-bread with a bit of honey or jam, I would be her new best friend.

I'm not sure, but I think this would be the type of recipe that would appeal to frugal food rationed housewives.

The ingredients are simple:  Flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, milk, shortening, and an egg.

I measured everything out and realized I was a tiny bit shy on shortening, but I didn't think it would matter that much. On cooking shows, they never scrape everything clean, and they always say it tastes amazing! A missing teaspoon or so of shortening to make a 1/2 cup shouldn't matter - and my taste buds agreed once the finish product hit my hips ;)

 

Add the beaten egg to the milk and give it another stir for good measure.

 

The recipe calls for sifting the flour with the baking powder and salt, but I'm kind of lazy that way. I measured by spooning the flour into the cup and then leveling it off with the back of a knife. Then just added the baking powder and salt and stirred it in fairly well.

Blend the shortening and the sugar together. I could of used my KitchenAid, but that just seemed like overkill, it only took a minute to blend everything together using a spatula.

Alternate adding the flour mixture to the shortening with the milk/egg mixture.

At first it seemed like there was too much milk, but as I mooshed it...that's my technical cooking talk for pushing down on the flour with the back of the spatula... it came together. 

The end result was a thick pancake like batter.  Like gummy mashed potatoes.

Since most of my kitchen is packed up - my choices for baking dishes are severely limited. My ONLY choice was the angel food cake tin. The recipe says a loaf pan or a muffin tin.

I greased up the lucky winner with a bit of butter and dropped the batter in by the heaping spoonful.

I didn't bother with smoothing it down. Just make sure it's the same thickness around so it will bake evenly.

375 F and 30 minutes later. Yay!

At this point it's really important to let it cool before removing from the pan or trying to eat it.

On the first cake, I tried to cut in to it when it first came out of the oven and it was a fully-baked crumbly mess that I had to use a spoon to eat. *blush* I was a bit worried about the texture, but the more it cooled, the more it stuck together.  So, I left this baby alone to cool in the pan.

When it was finally cool enough that I could handle the cake without burning my hands, I tipped it out onto the rack.

I really like the rustic simple look.

Goal: Accomplished!

Sally Lunn Recipe
American Woman's Cook Book 1948 (pg 120)

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups sifted flour
• 3 tsps baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1/4 cup sugar

DIRECTIONS

1. Sift flour with baking powder and salt. 
2. Combine egg and milk.
3. Cream shortening and sugar.
4. Add flour alternatively with egg/milk mixture
5. Place in greased loaf pan or muffin pans and bake in a moderate oven (375 F) - 30 minutes

Makes 1 loaf or 12 muffins.