Confessions of a Platinum Blonde Mom

The Great Hard-Cooked Egg Experiment….

Part 1

So, I’m on a quest to find a way to hard-cook fresh eggs, of any size or color, which leaves them easy to peel and perfectly cooked. I’m a bit OCD, and it drives me crazy that so much egg white comes off with the shell. I miss the days of easy-to-peel hard-cooked eggs, and I’m beginning to think they are simply a figment of my imagination.

We have pet chickens, so farm-fresh eggs are fairly abundant. Now, if you're like me, you are well-aware of the philosophy that fresh eggs won't work -- you have to boil older eggs to be able to cleanly peel them (while leaving the egg white intact). I'm out to find a way to hard-cook my fresh eggs and have enough egg white (and sanity) intact to make beautiful deviled eggs.

Steamed Method

Recipe/Method: http://www.fresh-eggs-daily.com/2012/01/hard-steamed-eggs.html

According to this website, I should be able to cook my super-fresh eggs and they should peel well. Please keep in mind that I'm at a relatively high altitude (4400 ft. above sea level), so that may (or may not) play into how they cook.

I started with 9 freshly-laid eggs, laid over a 2-day period. Those are some SERIOUSLY fresh eggs!

I used a medium-size pot, with a steamer “flower” in the bottom. Unfortunately, I do not own a bamboo steamer, and I wanted to be sure the steam was fairly even around the eggs, so I chose to not use my double-boiler-style steam pot, which is pretty small.

I chose to cook several eggs, to account for any variables within the eggs. You'll notice the shells are different colors; this doesn't have any bearing on what the eggs taste like -- they just look pretty in the carton! The eggs to vary slightly in size.

Following the instructions outlined on the website, I brought the water to a boil, rinsed each egg in warm water and added the eggs. I put the lid on the pot, and then set the timer for 20 minutes. When it went off, the eggs went into the waiting ice water bath. It really only took a couple of minutes for them to cool off “until they are cool enough to peel.”

So, how did they turn out?