Now that we are deep in May and Easter is well behind us, you might think that the days of the cream eggs are over. This is only partially true. The days of cream eggs are (unfortunately) over, but the days of cream eggs are only just beginning. At least for me.
Eggs fried in cream first caught my eye about a year ago when Food52 wrote about them, but the idea (as far as I can tell) came from Ideas in food, this is a pretty good blog with – as the name suggests – pretty good ideas about food. One of her good ideas is obviously frying eggs in cream and I wish I had tried it sooner.
It is less of a recipe than a method: you pour some cream into a pan, crack the eggs in the cream and season everything with salt. Cook the eggs over medium heat until the water boils off the cream and the proteins and sugar start to caramelize and brown, resulting in very tender, very tasty fried eggs.
The cream will lather for a while, especially if you have a lot of it in the pan but aren’t concerned. This is the water that boils, and it is necessary. When I first made this, I filled the pan to the brim with cream before adding the eggs. It was too much and by the time the cream caramelized the yolks were a little overcooked. I recommend starting with 3-4 tablespoons of cream for two eggs and increasing it if things look too dry too quickly. Both Food52 and Ideas in Food recommend removing the eggs from the stove and covering them to finish cooking. However, I found that by the time the cream started to caramelize, my whites were completely set.
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As you can see, there is a nice gradation in the degree of yolk doneness with this method – the top is super soft, almost runny, while the base is hard-boiled but not strong enough to taste like sulfur. But the real hero of the play is the whites. They’re incredibly tender, a bit crispy around the edges, and really took on the rich, sweet character of the caramelized cream.
I only have one bone to pick with this method: when the cream caramelizes, it melts into the pan – even with a non-stick coating! – in a way that is quite annoying when cleaning. It doesn’t mess up the finish or anything, it just takes a fair bit of scrubbing to remove it and I’ve never had to scrub a Teflon coated pan before. But the eggs come out of the pan pretty easily, and that medium amount of scrubbing is a small price to pay for eggs as forgiving as this one.
