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Shirred Eggs

Eggs baked in buttered dishes, salted, topped with thick cream, and basted with melted butter.

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 individual baking dishes.

  2. Break an egg into each dish.

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

  4. Cover with 1 tablespoon of thick cream.

Bake

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

  2. Baste with melted butter while baking.

  3. Cook until quite 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

Eggs
Set into a firm, tender structure as the proteins coagulate with heat.
Thick cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the eggs soft and creamy beneath the surface.
Melted butter
Adds fat and flavour while basting, helping the surface brown gently.

The step that matters

Cook until quite firm to the touch. Egg whites set at about 60°C while yolks need more heat, so pulling the dish too early leaves runny whites. Overbaking in the water bath turns the yolk chalky and dry.

“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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