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Shirred Eggs

A simple baked egg topped with cream and butter, seasoned with sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Shirred Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter an individual baking dish.

  2. Break an egg into the dish.

  3. Sprinkle a little coarse sea salt on the whites.

Bake

  1. Cover the egg with 1 tablespoon of thick cream.

  2. Baste with melted butter several times while baking.

  3. Set the dish in a pan of hot water.

  4. Cook until the egg is firm to the touch.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg
Its proteins set when heated, giving the dish its firm white and soft structure.
Thick cream
Covers the egg and adds moisture and richness, keeping the texture tender.
Melted butter
Basting adds fat that enriches the flavor and helps the surface stay moist.

The step that matters

Cook until the egg is firm to the touch.. Egg proteins set as they warm, so the white firms while the yolk stays soft. Overcooking, especially in very hot water, makes the white rubbery and dries the yolk, so check early and stop once the white is set.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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