Author: Robert Andrews

Easy Sandwich Bread

Sandwich Bread Ingredients

You need 7 ingredients—practically the same as my homemade cinnamon swirl bread but less sugar. Likewise, they’re basically the same ingredients as my soft dinner rolls too, but in order to bake a bread that rises tall and has legitimate structure, we’ll leave out some of the fat. Swap some of the milk for water and leave out the egg.

  1. Water: Liquid activates yeast. I use mostly water in this dough because we need a bread that has structure. Using all milk, like I do for my dinner rolls, would yield a flimsy bread without much texture.
  2. Milk: To make a soft bread, you need fat in the dough so make sure 1/4 cup of the liquid is milk. Low fat milk works too, but whole milk produces phenomenal texture.
  3. Yeast: You can use active dry yeast or instant yeast. If using active dry, the rise times will be a bit longer. I recommend Platinum Yeast from Red Star, which is an instant yeast blended with natural dough improvers. It’s my go-to for all bread.
  4. Sugar: Sugar feeds the yeast, increases its activity, and tenderizes the dough.
  5. Butter: Butter promises a flavorful loaf. I tested this recipe with melted butter, softened butter, and even olive oil. We liked the loaf made with softened butter the best because it had pronounced buttery flavor and a softer (yet still sturdy) interior.
  6. Salt: You can’t make flavorful bread without salt!
  7. Flour: You can use all-purpose flour or bread flour. All-purpose flour is convenient for most, but bread flour produces a chewier crust. There are no other changes to the recipe if you use bread flour. For best taste, I highly recommend bread flour. It’s what I always use when I make artisan bread. If you wish to use whole wheat flour, follow my recipe for whole wheat bread instead.

Sandwich Bread

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 4.9 from 1185 reviews
  • Author: Sally McKenney
  • Prep Time: 3 hours, 20 minutes
  • Cook Time: 32 minutes
  • Total Time: 4 hours
  • Yield: 1 loaf

You only need 7 ingredients to make this simple sandwich bread. Soft and buttery with a chewy/crisp crust, this fresh loaf of bread will quickly become a staple in your kitchen. See recipe notes for freezing and overnight instructions. You can also reference my Baking with Yeast Guide for answers to common yeast FAQs. 

Ingredients

    • 1 cup (240ml) water, warmed to about 110°F (43°C)
    • 1/4 cup (60ml) whole milk, warmed to about 110°F (43°C)
    • 2 and 1/4 teaspoons (7g) Platinum Yeast from Red Star instant yeast (1 standard packet)
  • 2 Tablespoons (25g) granulated sugar
  • 4 Tablespoons (1/4 cup; 56g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
  • 1 and 1/2 teaspoons (9g) salt
  • 3 and 1/3 cups (about 420–430g) all-purpose flour or bread flour (spooned & leveled), plus more as needed

Instructions

    1. Prepare the dough: Whisk the warm water, warm milk, yeast, and sugar together in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment. Cover and allow to sit for 5 minutes.
    2. Add the butter, salt, and 1 cup flour. Beat on low speed for 30 seconds, scrape down the sides of the bowl with a silicone spatula, then add another cup of flour. Beat on medium speed until relatively incorporated (there may still be chunks of butter). Add the remaining flour and beat on medium speed until the dough comes together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl, about 2 minutes. *If you do not own a mixer, you can mix this dough with a large wooden spoon or silicone spatula. It will take a bit of arm muscle!*
    1. Knead the dough: Keep the dough in the mixer and beat for an additional 5–8 full minutes, or knead by hand on a lightly floured surface for 5–8 full minutes. (If you’re new to bread-baking, my How to Knead Dough video tutorial can help here.) If the dough becomes too sticky during the kneading process, sprinkle 1 teaspoon of flour at a time on the dough or on the work surface/in the bowl to make a soft, slightly tacky dough. Do not add more flour than you need; you do not want a dry dough. After kneading, the dough should still feel a little soft. Poke it with your finger—if it slowly bounces back, your dough is ready to rise. You can also do a “windowpane test” to see if your dough has been kneaded long enough: tear off a small (roughly golfball-size) piece of dough and gently stretch it out until it’s thin enough for light to pass through it. Hold it up to a window or light. Does light pass through the stretched dough without the dough tearing first? If so, your dough has been kneaded long enough and is ready to rise. If not, keep kneading.
    2. 1st Rise: Lightly grease a large bowl with olive oil or nonstick spray. Place the dough in the bowl, turning it to coat all sides in the oil. Cover the bowl and allow the dough to rise in a relatively warm environment for 1-2 hours or until double in size. (I always let it rise on the counter. Takes about 2 hours. For a tiny reduction in rise time, see my answer to Where Should Dough Rise? in my Baking with Yeast Guide.)
    3. Grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan.
    4. Shape the bread: When the dough is ready, punch it down to release the air. Lightly flour a work surface, your hands, and a rolling pin. Roll the dough out into a large rectangle, about 8×15 inches. It does not have to be perfect—in fact, it will probably be rounded on the edges. That’s ok! Roll it up into an 8 inch log and place in the prepared loaf pan.
    5. 2nd Rise: Cover shaped loaf with aluminum foil, plastic wrap, or a clean kitchen towel. Allow to rise until it’s about 1 inch above the top of the loaf pan, about 1 hour. (See video and photo above for a visual.)
  1. Adjust oven rack to a lower position and preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). (It’s best to bake the bread towards the bottom of the oven so the top doesn’t burn.)
  2. Bake the bread: Bake for 32-36 minutes or until golden brown on top. If you notice the top browning too quickly, loosely tent the pan with aluminum foil. (I usually add aluminum foil over the loaf around the 20 minute mark.) To test for doneness, if you gently tap on the loaf, it should sound hollow. For a more accurate test, the bread is done when an instant-read thermometer reads the center of the loaf as 195–200°F (90–93°C).
  3. Remove from the oven and allow bread to cool for a few minutes in the pan on a cooling rack before removing the bread from the pan and slicing. Feel free to let it cool completely before slicing, too.
  4. Cover leftover bread tightly and store at room temperature for 6 days or in the refrigerator for up to 10 days.

Notes

    1. Freezing Instructions: Prepare recipe through step 6. Place shaped loaf in a greased 9×5-inch loaf pan or disposable loaf pan, cover tightly, and freeze for up to 3 months. On the day you serve it, let the loaf thaw and rise for about 4-5 hours at room temperature. Bake as directed. You can also freeze the baked bread loaf. Allow the bread to cool completely, then freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator or at room temperature, then reheat as desired.
    2. Overnight Instructions: Prepare the recipe through step 6. Cover the shaped bread tightly and refrigerate for up to about 15 hours. At least 3 hours before you need the bread the next day, remove  from the refrigerator, keep covered, and allow to rise on the counter for about 1-2 hours before baking. Alternatively, you can let the dough have its 1st rise in the refrigerator overnight. Cover the dough tightly and place in the refrigerator for up to 12 hours. Remove from the refrigerator and allow the dough to fully rise for 2 more hours. Continue with step 5.
    3. Special Tools (affiliate links): Electric Stand Mixer or Large Glass Mixing Bowl with Wooden Spoon / Silicone Spatula | 9×5-inch Loaf Pan | Rolling Pin
    4. Yeast: Platinum Yeast from Red Star is an instant yeast. Any instant yeast works. You can use active dry yeast instead. Rise times will be slightly longer using active dry yeast. Reference my Baking with Yeast Guide for answers to common yeast FAQs.
  1. Flour: You can use all-purpose flour or bread flour. All-purpose flour is convenient for most, but bread flour produces a chewier loaf of bread and I highly recommend it. The bread is still soft no matter which you use. Either flour is fine and there are no other changes to the recipe if you use one or the other. I don’t recommend whole wheat flour because it doesn’t have the same baking properties as white flour or bread flour (the gluten levels are different). If you wish to use whole wheat flour, try my recipe for whole wheat bread instead.
  2. Doubling this recipe: For best results, I recommend making two separate batches of dough. However, if you want to double the recipe all in 1 mixing bowl, double all of the ingredients except for the yeast and butter. Use 3 and 1/4 teaspoons yeast and 6 Tablespoons of butter.
  3. Bread Machine Questions: I don’t own a bread machine so I have not tested it, but some readers in the comments section have had success.
  4. Adapted from Homemade Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Find it online: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/sandwich-bread/

Turkish Pide Breads

The Turkish name for this bread is pide ekmeği, which translates as “pita bread.” But these are not the thin, pocketed flatbreads familiar to most Americans. Pide ekmeği are roughly the size of a small pizza, with an airy, open crumb and a tender, almost pillowy quality. Sometimes a sprinkling of seeds adds texture and flavor. We encountered pide ekmeği served alongside tepsi kebabı, or “tray kebab,” during a visit to Türkiye. We tried basic bread-making formulas, but ultimately found that starting with a sponge—a mixture of yeast, flour and water that becomes bubbly after standing for 30 minutes—produced breads with not only the lightness we were after, but also a more complex flavor. For dusting the breads just before baking, we use nigella seeds, which have an earthy, slightly bitter flavor with notes of allium. Sesame seeds are good, too—or use a combination. The bread is best served warm or at room temperature the day of baking, but foil-wrapped leftovers reheat well in a 400°F oven in about 10 minutes.

2 cups warm water (110°F), divided
2¼ teaspoons instant yeast
2 teaspoons honey
137 grams (1 cup) plus 411 grams (3 cups) bread flour, plus more for dusting
5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1½ teaspoons table salt
1 large egg, well beaten
1 tablespoon nigella seeds (see headnote), sesame seeds or a combination

Tip

Don’t be tempted to add more flour to the dough during mixing. The dough’s relatively high hydration is key to the bread’s light, airy crumb.

Step 1

In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together 1 cup of the warm water, the yeast, honey and 137 grams (1 cup) of the flour. Cover and let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes; the mixture, called a “sponge,” will rise slightly and become bubbly.

Step 2

To the sponge, add the remaining 411 grams (3 cups) flour, remaining 1 cup warm water and 3 tablespoons of the oil. Using the dough hook, mix on medium for 5 minutes, scraping the bowl as needed. Add the salt and knead on medium until a sticky, batter-like dough forms (it will not clear the sides of the bowl), about another 5 minutes, scraping the bowl as needed. Detach the bowl from the mixer. Scrape the sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and let rise at room temperature until doubled, 1 to 1½ hours. Meanwhile, drizzle the remaining 2 tablespoons oil onto a rimmed baking sheet, then brush to coat evenly.

Step 3

When the dough has doubled, generously dust the counter with flour, then turn the dough out onto it; divide in half. Shape each portion into a smooth ball, flouring your hands as needed. Set a dough ball on each side of the prepared baking sheet, cover with a towel and let rest 15 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 475°F with a rack in the middle position.

Step 4

Using your hands, gently pat and flatten each portion into a 10-by-7-inch oval, taking care not to press out all of the air. Re-cover with the towel and let rest for 20 minutes; it’s fine if the ovals end up touching.

Step 5

Gently brush one portion of the dough with egg. Imprint a series of dimples, spaced about 1 inch apart, into the oval by firmly pressing your fingertips straight down into the dough. Again using your fingertips, imprint another series of dimples, also spaced about 1 inch apart, perpendicular to the first set, creating a rough grid pattern in the dough. Brush the second dough portion with egg and dimple it the same way as the first.

Step 6

Sprinkle the ovals with the nigella seeds. Bake until light golden brown and well risen, 16 to 18 minutes. Cool for about 5 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Don’t Drown Your Pasta

For many of us, pasta is one of the first things we learn to cook — often starting with boxed macaroni and cheese. In fact, you’ve probably been cooking it for most of your life, from adolescence onward, but chances are, you’ve been doing it wrong.

According to conventional wisdom — and most package directions — you must boil pasta in plenty of salted water. But like many other long-held cooking traditions, that rule doesn’t hold up under scientific scrutiny. Making one simple tweak saves time, lowers your gas or electric bill, and yields the best pasta of your life.
Use Just Enough Water To Cook Pasta

Food science author Harold McGee was among the first to question the traditional method, and other science-minded food writers like J. Kenji López-Alt of Serious Eats independently confirmed his findings. The secret? Using significantly less water.

Here’s how it works: Cover the pasta with cold water using roughly 4 parts water to 1 part pasta (about 2 quarts for a 1-pound box). Stir the pasta a few times at the start to prevent clumping, then cook until al dente. While it cooks, heat your sauce in a separate pan. The leftover pasta water will look thick and cloudy, but that concentrated starch is exactly what you want. Drain the pasta over a bowl to catch that liquid gold. (We’ll explain what to do with it in the next section.)

How This Trick Improves Your Pasta

At this point, if you pull out a piece of pasta and try it, it’ll taste and feel the same as usual. Add the cooked pasta to your warmed sauce, toss it, and give it a taste. Again, completely normal. Now, add a splash of your starchy pasta water to the pan and toss it again. You’ll see the sauce — whether tomato, pesto, or Alfredo — begin to cling to the noodles, giving each piece its own silky coating. That’s what concentrated pasta water brings to the table.

It works because the heavy starches in the water act as an emulsifier, bringing fats and liquids together in a single, luxurious sauce. Classic dishes like cacio e pepe rely almost entirely on this reaction. As a bonus, using less water means your pot comes to a boil faster. That saves both time and energy, helping you put a better meal on the table in less time.

Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie

A few things before you start:

  • This is a freeze-first cookie. You make the dough, portion it, and freeze it before it ever sees the oven. I use this quarter sheet pan to hold the dough in the freezer for the first day before I transfer it to a Ziploc freezer bag. Freeze the dough for least 6 hours before you bake, though dough balls hold in the freezer for weeks or months. That’s been my secret weapon for years: a bag of frozen dough balls means a warm cookie is always about 20 minutes away, whenever people are over or I just want one.
  • Weigh everything. I know not everyone bakes with a scale, but I can’t really troubleshoot for you if you’re using measuring cups. Everyone scoops flour a little differently. (Get a cheap digital scale. It’ll pay for itself the first time you bake. It’s also way easier!)
  • This recipe is tested with King Arthur all-purpose flour. That’s the only flour I can vouch for here.
  • Get an oven thermometer. This one is $8. Before you bake your cookies, set your oven to 350, put it in, and see what your oven is actually doing. Running hot or cool changes everything about baking, particularly how these cookies bake. If you find that your oven isn’t calibrated correctly, you can always just bump the temp up or down depending on what you find.
  • Pans matter here. Dark pans will burn the bottoms. I use these sheet pans. Inexpensive, dishwasher-safe, and what’s under every cookie I sold this summer.

The technique (read this part first)

 

This dough does not get creamed. No bringing butter to room temperature, no whipping it fluffy with sugar. You’re using cold, cubed butter straight from the fridge. I use my KitchenAid mixer (here’s their classic version that’s not as large as mine), but I’ve never tested this recipe without a mixer. I mix the cold butter with the sugar on low just until the butter’s incorporated and no longer in visible chunks. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix for no more than 30 seconds. Then add your dry ingredients and mix only until combined. Fold in the chocolate chips. Can you sense a theme here? Over-mixing is the one real way to ruin this dough, so when in doubt, stop early.

 

The other technique you’ll want to employ is shaping the cookie dough into tall mounds before you freeze them. Below, I’ve shown how I shape the dough. It looks a little weird, but I promise it will give you a better result than rolling the dough into a round ball.

[ CLICK HERE TO SEE PHOTO ]
If photo is gone, they look like termite mounds

NORTHWOODS TABLE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE RECIPE

[ PHOTO OF FINISHED COOKIE ]

Ingredients

 

8 ounces (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, each stick cut into 8 pieces
200 grams (1 cup) light brown sugar
120 grams (2/3 cup) white sugar
1 whole egg
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
405 grams (about 3 1/3 cup) all purpose flour
8 grams (2 teaspoons) baking powder
4 grams (1 1/2 teaspoons) Diamond Crystal kosher salt (if using Morton, cut in half)
5 grams (1 teaspoon) baking soda
5 grams (1 1/2 teaspoons) cornstarch
8 ounces (1 1/3 cups) semi-sweet mini chips (I use Toll House)
8 ounces (1 1/3 cups) milk chocolate chips (I use Ghiradelli)

Directions

 

  1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cold cubed butter and sugars on low for 2 minutes, until the butter is broken down with no visible chunks.
  2. Add the egg, egg yolks, and vanilla. Mix on medium-low for no more than 30 seconds, just until incorporated. Scrape down the bowl as needed.
  3. Whisk the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl, then add to the wet ingredients. Mix on low until just combined — don’t overwork it.
  4. Fold in both chocolate chips, by hand if the mixer isn’t distributing them evenly. Stop as soon as they’re incorporated.
  5. Portion the dough into 6 ounces each using a scale — this recipe makes about 8½ cookies (I eat the half raw, haha, freeze the other 8). No scale? Eyeball 8–9 even portions. Shape each into a tall dome rather than a round ball, then flatten the bottom slightly so it won’t tip over in the oven. Place on a parchment-lined pan or plate for freezing.
  6. Freeze the portioned dough at least 6 hours before baking — or up to a few months.
  7. When you’re ready to bake, preheat your oven to 350°F or 375°F — see notes below for which.
  8. Bake straight from frozen on parchment-lined half sheet pans (4 cookies per pan max) for 16 minutes, rotating the pans top-to-bottom and front-to-back halfway through, until the tops and bottoms just start to brown. (A full 8-cookie batch can take closer to 20 minutes.) The centers should still look doughy. Cool on the pan for 15 minutes to set up before moving.

350°F vs. 375°F: Both work, it’s genuinely personal preference. 350°F gives you a less domed cookie. 375°F gives you a taller, more browned dome. The cookie is doughy in the middle either way. If you use 375°F, keep an eye on the cookies so they don’t burn.

 

Homemade Candied Ginger

Ingredients

  • 1 pounds fresh ginger root
  • 5 cups water
  • 2 cups granulated sugar (for syrup)
  • 0.5 cups granulated sugar (for coating)

Steps
1 – Peel and slice: Peel 1 pounds fresh ginger root (the edge of a spoon works well) and slice it into thin coins about 1/8 inch thick. A mandoline makes this much faster. Choose plump, smooth ginger; older, wrinkly roots are stringy.
2 – Simmer until tender: Put the ginger in a saucepan with 5 cups water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a steady simmer, covered, until the slices are tender when pierced with a fork.
3 – Drain, save some liquid: Drain the ginger, reserving 1/4 cup of the cooking water. For milder ginger, you can repeat the simmer in fresh water once more.
4 – Candy in syrup: Return the ginger and the reserved 1/4 cup water to the pan with 2 cups granulated sugar (for syrup). Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until the syrup thickens, the ginger turns translucent, and the mixture is nearly dry and starting to look grainy (about 225°F on a candy thermometer). Watch closely near the end so it doesn’t scorch.
5 – Coat in sugar: Transfer the hot ginger with a slotted spoon to a bowl with 0.5 cups granulated sugar (for coating) and toss until every piece is coated. Save any leftover syrup in a jar for tea, cocktails, or drizzling.
6 – Dry: Spread the pieces in a single layer on a wire rack and let them dry until no longer sticky.

Notes

Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 months. The sugar left over from coating is ginger-flavored and great in baking or coffee. If the slices come out too firm, they were cut too thick or not simmered long enough in step 2.
Results from the web

The key is slicing thin and simmering until truly tender before the sugar goes in; once it’s candied, the texture won’t soften further. In Phoenix’s dry air, the pieces usually firm up faster than the 4-hour drying estimate, so check them after an hour or two.

Queso Dip

For the queso:

  • 2 cups half-and-half, divided
  • 1 tablespoon cornstarch
  • 1 teaspoon chili powder
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • ½ teaspoon onion powder
  • ½ teaspoon garlic powder
  • 2 cups (8 ounces) shredded sharp cheddar cheese (preferably freshly grated)
  • 1 ½ cups shredded queso quesadilla cheese or Monterey jack cheese
  • 4-ounce can diced green chilies
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • Chopped fresh cilantro, optional
  • Chopped green onions, optional
  • Diced tomato, optional

For serving (optional):

• Tortilla chips, bagel chips or plantain chips

• Vegetables, such as baby carrots, celery, bell peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, radishes

• Bread, soft pretzel bites, tortillas

Instructions:

1. In a small bowl, whisk together ¼ cup of the half-and-half and the cornstarch. Set aside.

2. Pour the remaining 1 ¾ cups of half-and-half into a medium saucepan and whisk in the chili powder, cumin, onion powder and garlic powder. Set the pan over medium heat and bring to a simmer.

3. Whisk the half-and-half/cornstarch mixture again to ensure the cornstarch is fully dissolved (not stuck to the bottom of the bowl) and add the mixture to the pan. Return to a simmer and cook for 1 minute, until the mixture thickens slightly, whisking constantly. Reduce the heat to low.

4. Fold in both cheeses, one handful at a time, and stir until the cheese melts. Fold in the green chilies.

5. Remove the pan from the heat and season to taste with salt and pepper.

6. Transfer to a serving dish, top with cilantro, green onions and tomato (if using) and serve with desired dippers.

Egg Information

The Food Lab: Perfect Boiled Eggs

Posted by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, October 9, 2009 at 11:45 AM – Serious Eats

Note: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt (of Good Eater) brought his analytical cooking expertise to us last week in his first installment of The Burger Lab. This week he starts another bi-weekly column, The Food Lab, dedicated to unraveling the science of cooking. Today, learn about what happens under the shell when boiling eggs and how to make the perfect soft and hard boiled eggs.

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Perfect Boiled Eggs Recipe

Want to go straight to the kitchen? Here’s the recipe for Perfect Boiled Eggs.

I’d like to apologize in advance for the shameless, horrible egg puns that I’m inevitably going to shell out over the course of this story.

For the very first installment of The Food Lab, I thought I’d tackle one of the simplest, yet most vexing everyday challenges of the home kitchen: perfectly boiling an egg.

Nearly every basic cookbook offers conflicting techniques on how it should be done—start the egg in cold water, or gently lower it into boiling water; add vinegar to the water to lower its pH, or add baking soda to the water to raise it; cover the pot, don’t cover the pot; use old eggs, or use new eggs, and on and on—but very few offer evidence as to why any one of these techniques should work any better than your average old wives’ tale. Apparently, boiling is not…ahem…an eggs-act science.

The first few of these fairy tales were easy to banish with some easy tests.

What Factors Matter When Boiling Eggs?

Age of the Eggs
“Old eggs are for boiling, fresh eggs are for frying,” is the old chestnut. Well, it’s true…to a degree. As anyone who’s had fresh-from the hen eggs will tell you, they do fry up beautifully, giving you tall, tall yolks, and tight whites, and trying to peel a very freshly laid boiled egg is difficult—the inner membrane of the shell has a tendency to stick to the white, giving the peeled egg a pockmarked appearance. But these differences disappear within a few days after the egg has been laid. Since eggs in the supermarket can spend up to 30 days before they even hit the shelf, followed by a further 30 days before they hit their expiration date, the point is pretty much moot. So long as you don’t keep your own chickens, you can boil eggs with impunity.

pH of the Water
It’s true that over time, acidic liquid can dissolve the shell of an egg, and that alkaline liquid can both make the egg easier to peel, as well as boost that “rotten egg” aroma, but in the short period that an egg spends boiling, pH has little to nothing to do with how the egg cooks. Just use plain tap water; don’t bother with vinegar or baking soda.

Lid on, or Off?
The only effect it has is on the heat retention and boiling point of the water. Since, as you’ll see, we’ll be cooking most eggs at below a boil, you don’t want to use a cover.

Turns out, the only factors that really do matter when boiling an egg are time and temperature.

The photo below demonstrates what happens when you lower an egg into boiling water. The egg in the upper left corner was boiled for precisely one minute, the one directly to its right was boiled for three minutes, and so on down the line, at two minute intervals, until you finally get to the egg on the bottom right, which was boiled for 15 minutes.

09242009timing.jpg

It may seem obvious to state this, but it’s such an important point in cooking that I’m going to say it anyway: when a mass is exposed to heat for a given period of time, a temperature gradient will form within that mass, with the area closest to the heat source being hottest, and the area furthest from the heat source being coolest. With very few exceptions, the temperature of a given spot in the food is proportional to the inverse square of its distance from the surface exposed to the heat source.

In other words, the middle of your food is going to cook more slowly than the exterior, and the hotter the heat source, the bigger the temperature differential will be between the center and the exterior.

The Temperature Timeline of Boiling an Egg

Now, here’s what happens as an egg white cooks:

  • From 30 -140 degrees: As it gets hot, its proteins, which resemble coiled up balls of yarn, slowly start to uncoil.
  • At 140 degrees: Some of these uncoiled proteins—called ovotransferrin—begin to bond with each other, creating a matrix, and turning the egg white milky and jelly-like (like the innermost layers of egg white in the 3-minute egg above).
  • At 155 degrees: The ovotransferrin has formed and opaque solid, though it is still quite soft and moist (see the white of the 5-minute egg).
  • At 180 degrees: The main protein in egg whites—ovalbumen—will cross-link and solidify, giving you a totally firm egg white (see the whites of the 7 and 9 minute eggs). This is very similar to the gunk that seeps out of the surface of overcooked salmon.
  • 180 degrees-plus: The hotter you get the egg, the tighter these proteins bond, and the firmer, drier, and rubbier the egg white becomes (the 11-15 minute eggs). Hydrogen Sulfide, or “rotten-egg” aromas, begin to develop. Ick.

09242009badhardegg.jpg

Egg yolks, on the other hand, follow a different set of temperatures:

  • At 145 degrees: They begin to thicken and set up.
  • At 158 degrees: They become totally firm, but are still bright orange and shiny.
  • At 170 degrees: They become pale yellow and start to turn crumbly.
  • 170 degrees-plus: They dry out and turn chalky. The sulfur in the whites rapidly reacts with the iron in the yolks, creating ferrous sulfide, and tinging the yolks.

The five degree temperature difference between when the egg white and the egg yolks firm is what allows chefs at fancy-pants restaurants to serve those “slow-cooked” eggs. They simply place the egg in a 140 degree water bath, wait about 45 minutes (by which point the egg has reached 140 degrees all the way from edge to center), then carefully crack them. The results is a white that is soft and translucent but holds it’s shape, and a yolk that is still completely liquid. Beautiful.

So far so good? Is this all going over easy? Now with all this background information dealt with, we can move on to something a little more eggs-citing: perfecting the boil.

Perfect Soft Eggs

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The French have got all kinds of wild descriptions for eggs cooked to various degrees of doneness, but in American culinary terms, in the ideal soft-boiled egg, the white should be completely opaque, but not to the point of rubberiness (somewhere in the range of 155 to 180 degrees), and the yolk should be completely liquid (no hotter than 158 degrees). In this way, with each spoonful, you get tender bites of soft, velvety-smooth white, bathed in a sauce of glorious, bright golden, rich, flavorful yolk. These are the type of soft boiled eggs that’ll get you laid.

So long as your water never come above 180 degrees—at sea level, that’s the quivering stage just below a simmer—you have no chance of overcooking

So long as your water never come above 180 degrees—at sea level, that’s the quivering stage just below a simmer—you have no chance of overcooking and toughening the whites beyond the stage where ovalbumen just begins to set. Given that you’re using large eggs (eggs are remarkably well-sized, and are very consistent from carton to carton), that the eggs came from the fridge (around 37 degrees), and that you’re starting with a volume of 180 degree water large enough that it doesn’t significantly drop in temperature when you lower your eggs into it (three quarts of water is enough for anywhere from one to a half dozen eggs), then the only other variable remaining is the length of time you cook it for.

After a couple cartons of eggs, and a whole mess of egg salad, and what initially seemed like an un-winnable shell game, I determined that time to be eggs-actly 6 minutes, delivering the soft-boiled beauty you see above. Since whites set at 155 degrees and yolks set at 158, you have a tolerance of three degrees to work with, which translates to about 15 seconds in either direction. Use a timer!

Update (1/4/2010): For best results, heat water to 180 degrees as measured on an instant-read thermometer. After adding eggs, adjust heat to maintain temperature at 180 degrees for duration of cooking time. If you do not have a thermometer, keep the water at the early simmer stage when tiny bubbles are just beginning to break the surface (at high altitudes, the water may be bubbling more vigorously).

Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs

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Hard boiled eggs are a little more complicated. The goal is to have both your white and your yolk at the point where they are opaque, but not rubbery. Again, if you are a fancy-pants chef with a thermal circulator, set it at 170 degrees, drop in your eggs, and just wait. At home, we don’t have that luxury.

We already know that if we drop the eggs directly into boiling water, the exterior heats up much faster than the interior; by the time the very center of the yolk reaches 170 degrees, the white and outer layers of yolk are hopelessly overcooked, and smell worse than that guy in the elevator.

On the other hand, if you start the eggs in cold water, as the water gently heats up over the burner the eggs gently heat up right along with it, greatly reducing the temperature differential between the interior and exterior (remember the rule: the temperature differential between edge and center is proportional to the strength of the heat source).

This is nothing new. Many recipes instruct you to place the eggs in cold water, bring them to a simmer, shut off the heat, and wait for a prescribed period of time. However, as the photos below demonstrate, this doesn’t really work consistently.

Update (1/4/2010): For clarification, a “bare simmer” should be 180-190 degrees at sea level. For best results, use an instant-read thermometer. If you do not have a thermometer, bring the water to the stage when tiny bubbles are breaking the surface steadily before shutting it off.

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In each case, I placed the egg in a volume of cold water, brought the water to a simmer, shut it off, then left the egg in it for precisely ten minutes. As you can clearly see, depending on the initial volume of water (between one quart and four quarts in this case), the cooked eggs run the gamut from slightly undercooked, to totally overcooked! Taking the temperature of the water after 10 minutes confirmed the reason: the one quart pot had dropped to around 145 degrees, while the four quarts pot was still well above 175. No wonder it was overcooking!

there is a precise volume of water I can use to hard boil an egg

So this is what I discovered: given that my burner is consistent in its heat output, given that I use the same pot each time, given that my tap water always comes out at around 40 to 45 degrees, and given that my apartment is at a relatively stable temperature year around, there is a precise volume of water I can use to hard boil an egg such that if I start it cold, bring it up to a bare simmer, then immediately shut off the heat, the water temperature will drop to below 170 degrees just as the central yolk temperature reaches 170 degrees, thereby guaranteeing that my egg will be perfectly cooked every single time.

After some more fiddling and a few dozen deviled eggs, I discovered this volume to be 1.5 quarts.

09242009hardboiledtwins.jpgThe best part about using this method is that even if you accidentally forget about your egg and leave it sitting in the water, there is no chance that it will overcook, because by the time the egg is done (about ten minutes), the water temperature has dropped far enough that the egg will stop cooking. These two eggs were cooked in the same pot of water—one was removed after 10 minutes, while the other was left for a full thirty. As you can see, they are both perfectly cooked.

The unfortunate part of this technique is that if you use a range that is vastly stronger or weaker than one you are used to, or if you have a very odd-shaped cooking vessel that drastically alters the surface-area to volume ratio of the water, it will require some fiddling with. But for most practical purposes, this will deliver perfect hard boiled eggs every time.

Perfect eggs, but the yolk‘s on me—all this egg boiling has left me fried.

Continue here for the recipe for Perfect Boiled Eggs »

About the author: After graduating from MIT, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt spent many years as a chef, recipe developer, writer, and editor in Boston. He now lives in New York with his wife, where he runs a private chef business, KA Cuisine, and co-writes the blog GoodEater.org.

Comments:

Seriously, all this reading on how to boil an egg? If you want a nice and creamy but firm yolk, put eggs in a small pot, just enough to cover the top. Bring to a boil. Once the water reaches a rolling boil, take the pot off the heat. Let it sit for 5 minutes for a firm/creamy yolk. 4 minutes for a runny yolk. 6minutes for a stiff but not overcooked yolk

Let us not forget, in this country of gigantic agri-farms and unfresh eggs, raw egg yolks can mean salmonella. Better only do soft-boiled eggs that’ll get you laid with farmers market products.

I wondered why I would get different results sometimes, as I use a 12 minute rest after it reaches a simmer, now I know it’s the size of the pan. Pretty fascinating how they were the same after 10 and 30 minutes.

Peeling can be tough, but back when I was doing tests at Cook’s Illustrated, I did one where we boiled 200 eggs and peeled them using various methods. Not a single one of them worked perfectly every time – some eggs just seem stubborn no matter what you do to them – but the most consistent method was to shock them in ice water immediately after cooking, then peeling them under cool running water.

Shocking them causes the whites to quickly contract, but since the shell walls are rigid, they don’t contract in the same way. So the white pull away from the walls slightly, making it easier to separate them. Running water helps because it runs in between the membrane and the white, also helping to separate it. Finally, start by peeling eggs at the fat end where the air pocket is. It gives you a good access point so you can get the first bits of shell off without having to harm the egg underneath.

When I was working at a restaurant many years ago where we sered soft boiled eggs on a dish (this was in the days before sous-vide makes it easy and foolproof to do), I used to cook at least twice as many as I needed, knowing that half of them would end up stuck to their shells and turn into family meal later in the day.

I am really impressed that you conducted all these trials in your apartment kitchen. It’s one thing to do this kind of thorough experimentation at Cook’s Illustrated where I imagine there are plenty of hungry bellies willing to make sure failed trials don’t go to waste, but to do this on your own requires either a limitless love for eggs or a steadfast commitment to sacrificing in the name of science. Did you get sick of egg salad and deviled eggs?

I put eggs in a small saucepan, cover with cold water and bring to a boil over medium high heat. When the water starts to bubble, I reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 3-1/2 to 4 minutes. Then I drain, pour cool water over them to stop the cooking, quickly drain again and crack them open with the edge of a knife. Into a warmed bowl with a dab of butter, salt and pepper; toast on the side. Done.

6 minutes might be overcooked at a simmer, but these eggs are cooked at a sub-simmer. 180-degrees, when the water is barely quivering. It ensures that the exterior of the whites don’t get too tough, and six minutes really does work (especially if you have a thermometer and a timer)!

That said – of course, if you have a method that gives you eggs to your liking, there’s absolutely no reason to change anything about what you’re doing. Any method that gives you results you like is a good method!

Had a question – I tend to buy my eggs at the farmers market… as a result, they’re not refrigerated, making the internal temperature higher.

Have you done any tests with such an egg?

For a soft boil, saying they rest at around 68 degrees, would that cut my time in half?

How to “Peel” Hard-Boiled Eggs Without Peeling

I wouldn’t worry about the egg yolks. The salmonella in any egg is on the shell and comes from exposure to the hen’s digestive tract on its way out of the body via the cloaca. Add to that the fact that all of these cooking methods bring the yolk to at least 140 degrees and virtually all risk disappears

Wonderful article though, I really enjoyed reading the science of cooking eggs. And now I know why I’ve managed to undercook hard-boiled eggs before, apparently I used too much water in the pot.

Your visuals—especially the eggs sitting in a carton, cooked for increasing time periods—are fantastic! Thank you for this article. I look forward to reading more =)

Great article. Very informative. I’d really like to try out fancy-pants restaurant, slow-cooked egg method you mention. It must have been fantastic to work for Cook’s Illustrated!

Actually egg yolks can have salmonella if the hen’s ovaria is infected. Unlike egg white yolks don’t have lysozyme to kill bacteria, so they can grow inside yolks.

However, in agri-company mass produced eggs the possibility of salmonella-infected eggs are like 0.00001% (don’t remember exactly how many 0s), so you have to be pretty unlucky to get sick from eating runny yolk. I think nobody knows the % of infected eggs from small farms.

That article was eggsceptionally written. And the photo of the perfectly cooked egg with the liquid gold yolk and firm white was some seriously sexy food porn.

Thanks for the peeling tips. as a somewhat obsessed fan–only had 1 failed recipe from the ATK company in 4 years out of hundreds I’ve made–I get pretty much all of my info from the ATK knowledge bank and follow those peeling tips, as you said, sometimes it just doesn’t go as planned, and I also make a few extra, though my duds go to two very happy dogs.

I also have muscular dystrophy that affects my dexterity big time, and makes it hard for me not to throw difficult hard boiled eggs or potatoes I’m trying to peel across my kitchen at times!

I can picture your wife opening her lunch box saying “Eggs again! hopefully she has some good swap buddies where she works!”

How about your guys’ link: http://www.kjemi.uio.no/publikum/popularkjemi/egg/
why such a long article when it can be summed up in a flash app? scientifically researched and all?

I was hoping this article would address the green yolks I would get when I either overcooked the eggs or didn’t shock them immediately after cooking them.

Also, to the person who used to work at ATK — did you ever use the technique of blowing the egg out of its shell? It didn’t always work for me, but it was fun trying it out. Admittedly, I won’t use that technique if I’m making eggs for a public gathering.

One thing you didn’t analyze – supermarket eggs vs direct from farmer free range organic eggs. The eggs I use.

Shells on the supermarket eggs are much thinner than the eggs I use. That has some effect on heat transfer, but even more of an effect on peeling!

As a former scientist, I’m thrilled to see the detailed research that went into this – eggcellent job! I anxiously await your future hypotheses and methods.

This whole article articulates in such details on how to perfect the texture of the eggs. But it didn’t mention about a big factor – how to remove the sulfuric taste of the egg yolk!

I watched Chef Pepin’s cookshow once he taught the audience an important trick: to poke a tiny hole at the broad end of the egg (using a push pin or similar) before boiling. With this you can effectively eliminate the sulfuric smell and taste of the egg yolk, and simultaneously remove the greyish green “rim” around the yolk (which you can see between the egg white and the egg yolk from the pictures above).

This method has work perfectly for me! And these small details are what make a perfect egg!

As the previous post alluded to, Chef Jacques Pepin’s simple method will always yield perfect hard boiled eggs without a rubbery white, or the dreaded black ring around the yolk. However, there is a little more to it.
Poking a tiny hole in the end with a push-pin allows the air pocket to escape, so the egg does not crack. What you also must do is shock the boiled eggs in ice water for several minutes. This forces the sulfer to pass though the shell by osmosis and escape.

This is THE recipe for perfect hard boiled eggs:

Pierce the large end of each egg with a push-pin. Place the eggs in a saucepan with a generous amount of water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a low simmer. Cook 10 minutes. Drain water, and shake pan to crack eggshells. Submerge eggs an ice water bath to cool completely (15 min.) Peel under running water.

I’ve usualy done what salpico does – (Julia’s instructions, as I recall), but I’ve been having trouble lately getting the eggs to peel. I notice that he does as do I, and cracks the eggshells before submerging in ice water (and I’ve put a hole in the large end), whereas you seem to suggest that you let it shock in cold water before you crack it. Does this make a difference in whether the membrane pulls away?

lemonfair at 11:46AM on 10/11/09

So many great memories of soft-boiled egg on toast at the kitchen table on Saturday mornings. Thanks for the article! Got me all ramped up to bake some bread and boil some eggs. Damn my electric stove for temp control, but it still worked out pretty well.

Fantastic article. I just tried the method for hard boiled eggs and it was amazing. I didn’t know that my hard-cooked eggs could ever come out with a bright yellow, non-smelly, slightly creamy yolk and no green anywhere!

I may have to share this recipe with my mother. She’s going to ask me “What’s wrong with my eggs?!” until she tries it for herself, I’m sure of it.

Great article! I have always loved cooking shows that are educational in this manner. The incremental deviations were informative. I look forward to more!

Pepin suggests cracking the eggs before cooling, as opposed to afterwards. I have done it both ways, and don’t see a big difference.
The trick is to peel the eggs under running water, which makes it easier to separate the membrane and the shell from the egg.

We spent about 2 hours of our family vacation time in August discussing this very question, followed by heated back-and-forth e-mails after we returned home. The battle revolved around whether or not to put salt in the water, how long to cook, and whether to add the eggs to boiling water or not. We were all wrong, but as usual my mother was closest to the right answer.

re: farm fresh eggs vs. factory…it’s not the chicken poop on the egg that you have to worry about (although, yes wash it with a warm soapy scrubby) it’s the fact that mouse and rat poop get into the chicken feed at the factories (more bulk feeding, more feed laying around, more mice/rats to worry about) and then the chicken’s eating that causing the salmonella. When the feed is stored properly and chickens fed properly, this doesn’t happen nearly as much. Small farm chickens are usually healthier, usually getting sun and a variety of vegetable (grass, weeds) and meat (worms, bugs) products in their diet.
A healthier chicken means a healthier egg.

I think you should do part 2 of this in a high altitude location. I’ve been working on getting it right for about a year and a half now, and still don’t have a foolproof way. The again, I’m not nearly as scientific about it as you are.

In Jaque Pepin’s PBS techniques video he does and explains all this, even preventing the inner green color from appearing…wonderful and quite a few years old. And real simple to do and follow.

I just tried the soft-boiled per the above method with the water hitting 187F for 6 minutes … and they resembled something between the eggs above between 1 and 3 minutes. I pouted, tossed them down the disposal, and fried two more sunny-side up for dinner instead. If I could get a dedicated egg-shelling slave I’d be happy to do a high-altitude test.

Just a thought but if you have an oven with digital control of the temperature, couldn’t you use that to cook your eggs. Set the oven to 140F/155F/170F then add an oven-proof bowl with cold water and the eggs in it and leave it. Eventually, the eggs will reach the right temperature all the way through for the style you want. Anybody with a Gaggenau BO270 or similar out there willing to give it a go?

Very nice! Geeky and cheesy…reminds me of my husband, who I adore.

I also like the systematic approach you’ve presented — especially the influence of the cooking water volume. Others have already mentioned possible variables that apparently weren’t considered (initial temperature of the egg, shell thickness, etc). Previous comments have brough up Pepin’s riff on boiled eggs. I remember him also saying that he sometimes gauges a restaurant by its ability to properly cook a HB egg (especially in terms of the dreaded green ring).

Confession time: fueled by a desire for a precise cooking method and innate laziness, sometime ago I bought a Krups egg cooker. They’re inexpensive and do a pretty darn good job at hard, soft and medium boiled eggs. Anybody else use one?

I find eggs much more likely to crack as a result of rapid change in temperature when taken straight from the fridge and added to boiling water. Adding salt draws out some of the liquid in the egg, so that it is less likely to crack.

Oddly, two factors that in my experience make a significant difference are not mentioned: height above sea level and weather (the higher and rainier, the lower the boiling point of water, and the longer it takes for eggs to set.)

When I was a brunch cook in Greenwich Village, peeling HB eggs was a snap. I shocked the eggs in ice water, then cracked the shell as I rolled the egg away from me. As the egg rolled the shell continued to crack away from the egg. Then I directed a stream of cold water underneath the shell to help separate egg from shell

I never cooked any egg unless it was at warm room temperature, they never ever stuck to a pan.

When I poached eggs I warmed them first in hot water to prevent the egg going everywhere. Lastly, before introducing an egg to the poaching pan, make a gentle whirlpool around where you intend to place the egg. This to give it shape. Then slide the egg in as close to the surface of the water as possible.

Sorry, but this is way to much info for a lonely egg. I just want to eat it, and frankly I don’t care if its not “perfect” and I doubt if I could even tell the difference.

Thank you, thank you! This was egg-citing to read because being a food nerd, I did always want to know egg-xactly how to boil the perfect egg. So thank you for shelling out this info!!!

Ah….why am I only now finding this site??? The first article I read is the best thing since my Food Science class in culinary AND I find that it references the chef I admire most! I am ova-ly eggstatic! This has been worth the hunt…Knowing the whys and hows only make us better at what we love doing most.

I tried but could not get the “perfect soft-cooked egg” by placing an egg taken straight from the fridge into 180F water, despite meticulously maintaining the water bath at eggsactly 180F for the six minutes the egg was immersed. The egg was considerably undercooked, with the whites fairly liquidy. I’m going to try egg-en.

I love this article! I’ve always thought I was an idiot since every time I boil eggs (I’m a hard boil-type), there is always something wrong with them. Now I know why! Soft boiled eggs look fascinating, but runny yolks gross me out big time.

We did an entire series on “how to eggs” back in July. From getting the basics down we moved the egg out of its normal breakfast role into dinner as well as methods were really fool proof, we tried and tried until, well, perfect! http://www.chezus.com/?s=incredible+egg&x=0&y=0

I’ve been doing it the way that Sara Moulton mentioned on her show many years ago – put the eggs in a saucepan covered with water. Bring it to a boil, not a hard boil. Turn off heat. Cover and let sit on a cold burner for a specific amount of time (I think she said 13 minutes but I do it for 16 minutes).

I find that if I crack them a bit and then refrigerate for awhile, they peel much easier.

So I am not really boiling per-say. This way I never over-boil, I never get a green line around the yolk, and I don’t get that horrid sulphur smell you get from over boiling. Works well every time for me.

I will beg to differ on the instructions given here.

You *can* have more control and reduce the variables involved in cooking your eggs. First of all, starting with cold eggs right out of the fridge is a mistake. You are maximizing the temperature difference between the egg’s starting temperature and its final temperature. You will have much more control if you warm the eggs first. I place them in a bath of hot tap water for 10 minutes while I heat my water.

Secondly, I place the eggs directly into boiling water. The reason I put the eggs directly into boiling water is that waiting for a boil is a “soft target”. What you consider a boil or a simmer could be as much as a minute different from someone else.

Lastly, I stop the cooking after a prescribed period of time by pouring off most of the hot water and replacing it with water and ice.

In summary: 1) I reduce the temperature change that will be required from the starting point of the egg to the end point of the process by warming the eggs up. 2) I avoid soft milestones by placing the eggs directly into boiling water at the beginning of the cooking process. 3) I stop the cooking (and improve the peel of the egg) by using an ice wash at the end.

BTW, if you want hot eggs, pull them out after only 10 or 15 seconds. The ice water will have already improved the peel by cooling the membrane and surface of the egg without cooling the inside of the egg. You can even peel the egg most of the time before the heat rebounds and makes the egg too hot to hold. A neat trick!

I love the scientific approach to the art of boiling an egg. However, I am surprised the author did not mention the temperature of the egg going into the water. Were his eggs right out of the refrigerator (I don’t thing so) or were they at room temperature? This is an important consideration and I am surprised that it wasn’t mentioned!

As a scientist, I’m glad that someone is starting a series focusing on this aspect of cooking. However, I would like to point out an inconsistency:

“when a mass is exposed to heat for a given period of time, a temperature gradient will form within that mass, with the area closest to the heat source being hottest, and the area furthest from the heat source being coolest. With very few exceptions, the temperature of a given spot in the food is proportional to the inverse square of its distance from the surface exposed to the heat source.”

If this were true, since the distance from the heat source at the surface of the egg is zero, this would imply that the surface of the egg has infinite temperature. I think you mean to say that the RATE of heat conduction depends on the distance from the heat source (as well as the temperature difference). Also, the rate of heat conduction is proportional to the inverse of the distance from the source, NOT the inverse squared (Newton’s law of cooling).

Awesome write-up, I disdain cooking but am a scientist at heart… First thing I did was cruise down to the kitchen to give it a shot. When doing HB (but also SB) are you putting/leaving the lid on? That significantly changes the rate of heat loss to the environment and can make a big change in the water temperature variation over time…?

Thanks for the correction, although I think the original statement is technically not inaccurate – the temperature I did say proportional, which is not to say that there are not constants involved (such as the temperature of the heat source) in the equation that takes care of the zero/infinity case.

Newton’s law of cooling only states that the rate of heat transfer is proportional to the temperature difference between the body and its surroundings – it doesn’t have anything to do the temperature gradient formed within a solid mass. To solve that, I think it helps to think of the egg as something like a russian doll – a series of solids. From there you can see that because of Newton’s law of cooling, the outer layers heat up at a much faster rate than the inner layers and that the differences in the rate at which the various layers are heating up is proportional to the distance, which means that the differences in the actual temperatures of the various layers are proportional to the inverse square of the distance.

I was doing it lid off – but like I said in the post, you can’t control for all the variables that might affect cooking time – your house might be a few degrees cooler than mine, or your stove might have a few more btu’s than mine. This article is meant more as a guide so that you know what aspects to consider when boiling an egg, and so that you understand the science behind it, and will thus be able to optimize cooking in your own particular environment. If that means putting on a lid to reduce the rate of heat loss, so be it!

Kenji,
The contradition I pointed out still stands no matter what constants are involved since any constant divided by zero is still infinity.

The rate of heating per area is proportional to the temperature difference and inversely proportional to the distance (this actually means that in the instant right after the cool egg is put in the boiling water, the rate of heat transfer to the outer surface of the egg is infinite; note that this is not a paradox since an infinite rate times an infinitely small time interval is still a finite amount of heat). The temperature itself is not inversely proportional to the distance (or the square of the distance); solving the rate equation, the temperature approaches that of the boiling water exponentially fast with time so that if you wait long enough the whole egg will be the same temperature as the bath. The distance to the heat bath appears only in the exponent, so that the closer to the bath, the faster the temperature changes.

yes, you’re right. I jumped the gun in my response there. I stand corrected.

But at the risk of putting my foot in my mouth again, I’m going to ask you another question: my immediate reaction is that your statement that the rate of heating is inversely proportional to the distance is not quite accurate, because it does not take into account the heat transfer coefficient of the egg. In a vacuum, yes, the rate of heating is proportional to only the distance, but an egg has mass, and so there is a coefficient involved, and that coefficient is proportional to thickness of the egg that the heat has to pass through, so does that not turn the equation into an exponential one instead of a linear one?

And one more question: are we losing the other SEers here? 🙂

p.s. All of this is starting to remind me why thermodynamics was my second least favorite class in college 🙂

I may have missed it, but I didn’t see any comments about baking “hard boiled” eggs. I didn’t think it would work when I saw the article, but just set the raw eggs on middle rack of a cold oven, (they recommend a little foil on the bottom of the oven in case one is cracked and breaks – never had it happen) set oven temp to 325, set timer to 30 min., when timer goes off, drop in very cold water. I’ve done it several times, worked perfect everytime. Tried pulling some out at 25 min., yolks were not completely set good enough for devilled eggs, but perfect for eating with a little salt and pepper. One complaint about this method is wasting electricity just for a few eggs. I had my potatoes wrapped in foil, some bread rolls rising, and some jalepeno poppers that I bake as an appetizer ready to go in at appropriate times once full temp was reached. Egg salad sandwiches, potato salad, some appetizers, and probably hashbrowns for breakfast in my future. What energy waste?

Kenji,

The heat transfer rate/area = (coefficient of thermal conductivity)*(T_bath-T_egg)/distance

The equation is the same regardless of the medium. The dependence on the medium comes from the thermal conductivity coefficient.

Also, I agree with you that we are the only two involved in this conversation right now 🙂

Kenji, if you’re still reading the comments on this…

“This is very similar to the gunk that seeps out of the surface of overcooked salmon.”

When you did the poached/steamed salmon on ATK, you had white gunk, but made a point to say that it didn’t mean the salmon was overcooked. Why the discrepancy? Was that a special case because of the cooking method?

Also, thanks for this and all of your articles on here. They’ve been great.

Thanks to SeriousEats convenient comment subscriptions, I get comments forwarded to my inbox, so yep. Still reading them.

As for the answer… em… because Cook’s Illustrated readers like their salmon more well-done than I do?

shh… don’t tell Chris!

In culinary school, they had very specific suggestions for cooking hard-boiled eggs to perfection.

1) Start with large eggs in a saucepot large enough to hold them in one layer, with cold water covering them by 1 inch. Toss in a tablespoon of cheap, white vinegar, which prevents the albumen (white part) from leaking out of the egg into the water.

2) With no lid on the pot, bring the eggs to a boil. Once at a boil, lower to a bare simmer and cook for exactly 11 minutes. This consistently produces perfect hard-boiled egg whites and yolks, lacking the unattractive, green ring of sulfur that can develop outside of the yolk from overcooking the egg.

3) Remove from the heat and place the pot in a sink under cold running water until the eggs are cool enough to handle. No ice bath should be used as the extreme change in temperatures will ruin the egg’s texture.

4) Peel and use as desired.

This… is… SCIENCE! I truly enjoyed this post, and it worked!!! 😀

As someone with a grad degree in Chem E (and more semesters than I want to admit of heat & mass transfer), I cringe at the statements regarding heat transfer above. “Temperature proportional to the inverse square of the distance”? Would that T be Celsius, Fahrenheit, or absolute? (No constant will fix that erroneous statement.) And the concept (when accurately stated) only applies strictly to an infinite body heated from one flat side. With a convergent field geometry (like, say, an egg!), that ‘truism’ goes out the window pretty quickly. I leave it to the interested reader to pick up any undergrad heat flow textbook to see what is really going on here.

…that said, it was a quite eggs-haustive study on cooking eggs, with lots of interesting detail. I wouldn’t have a clue how to cook a perfect soft egg otherwise (not that I feel success is guaranteed in my hands, even with the info above!).

@Dr. Moze – Thanks for the feedback, and sorry for the cringe. You are obviously correct. I should have written “energy,” not temperature, and yes, it doesn’t exactly apply to an egg, but I think the point is still the same: food cooks from the outside in, and it does not do it linearly. If you draw a radius vs. temperature graph of the an egg from the outside to the center after it has boiled for 5 minutes and started at fridge temperature, the graph will pretty closely resemble an inverse exponential (with the extremities cut off).

It’s not mathematically, or physically accurate, but for all intents and purposes, as far as cooking an egg goes, it’ll do – you’ll find that the thermodynamics errors make in your cooking are negligible compared to real-world things like the variations in the size of your egg, or how well ventilated your kitchen is, or even how unlucky you are. All you really need to know is that the outside will get very close to 212 way before the center even gets much above fridge temp.

Guess what I’m saying is that for those people interested in the nitty-gritty math, there are books out there that they can read (as you said), but for the rest of us, “pretty-darn-close”, or “close-enough-that-the-eggs-cook-good” is good enough!

(p.s. a bad semester of thermodynamics was the reason I dropped my biology major in college!)

This is a great article. I have a mania for measurement and controlled processes, yet still love cooking (it helps me learn to let go of the mania 🙂 ) but what this article does to me is makes me want a sous-vide set-up *even more*. Damn you Kenji!!

I always use the Julia Child method of hard boiling eggs and I’m able to get consistantly perfect eggs every time. There’s probably several ways to get perfect hard boiled eggs, but I’ve already got my method.

We did similar experiments and then created a fun website which will give you a youtube clip of the correct length of time it takes to boil your egg (just choose size, fridge or not and desired squidgyness).

Have a look at www.eggwatchers.com

 

Tomato Bisque – Grandpa’s

Ingredients

• 1.5 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 0.8 medium onion, chopped
• 2.3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1.5 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1.5 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 21 ounces canned whole peeled tomatoes
• 2.3 cups vegetable or chicken stock
• 0.8 tablespoons sugar
• 0.8 teaspoons dried basil
• 0.4 teaspoons dried thyme
• 0.6 cups heavy cream
• 0.8 teaspoons salt
• 0.2 teaspoons black pepper
• 1.5 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped (for garnish)

Steps

1 Sauté aromatics: Melt 2 tablespoons unsalted butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add 1 medium onion, chopped and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.  Add 3 garlic cloves, minced and cook 1 minute more, until fragrant.

2 Build the base: Stir in 1.5 tablespoons tomato paste and cook for 1 minute to deepen the flavor. Sprinkle in 1.5 tablespoons all-purpose flour and stir constantly for 1 minute to cook off the raw flour taste.

3 Add tomatoes and simmer: Pour in 16-20 ounces canned whole peeled tomatoes (or pieces) breaking them up with a spoon, then add 2 1/2 cups vegetable or chicken stock, 1 tablespoons sugar, 1 teaspoons dried basil, and 1/2  teaspoons dried thyme. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Decide if you want it creamy or rustic.  If creamy, do Step 4.  Otherwise, move on to Step 5

4 Blend until smooth: Remove from heat and puree the soup using an immersion blender (or in batches in a stand blender) until completely smooth.  Add back to pot.

5 Finish with cream: Return the pot to low heat. Stir in 3/4 cups heavy cream, 1.2 teaspoons salt, and scant black pepper. Warm through gently for 3 minutes; do not let it boil.

6 Serve: Ladle into bowls and garnish with 1-2 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped (for garnish). Serve with crusty bread or a grilled cheese sandwich.

Sweet-and-sour meatballs

Sweet and Sour Meatball Recipe

These meatballs are definitively saucy, so you’ll be thankful to have something on the side to soak up every drop. I suggest rice or Asian noodles. I served the meatballs and sauce over cooked rice. Simply add steamed or roasted vegetables and the meal is complete.

Ingredients

  • 1 lb lean ground beef
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/4 cup panko breadcrumbs
  • 1/2 tsp onion powder
  • 1/2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper
  • 1/3 cup brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup rice vinegar
  • 3 tbsp ketchup
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce, tamari, or liquid aminos
  • 1 can (20 oz) pineapple chunks in 100% pineapple juice, drained, fruit and juice separated
  • 1 tbsp cornstarch
  • 2 bell peppers, any color, seeded and chopped
  • 2 tbsp sliced green onions, for garnish

Steps

  1. To make the meatballs, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil.
  2. In a large bowl, combine the 1 lb lean ground beef, 1 large egg, 1/4 cup panko breadcrumbs, 1/2 tsp onion powder, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp black pepper. Mix well and shape the mixture into 12 meatballs.
  3. Transfer the meatballs to the prepared pan and bake until browned and cooked through (160 degrees F on a meat thermometer).
  4. While the meatballs cook, make the sauce. In a large skillet, combine the 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1/3 cup rice vinegar, 3 tbsp ketchup, 2 tbsp soy sauce, tamari, or liquid aminos, and 3/4 cup of the reserved pineapple juice from the can (once drained, you should have about 1 cup of pineapple juice from the can). Set the pan over medium-high heat and bring to a simmer.
  5. In a small bowl, whisk together the 1 tbsp cornstarch and remaining 1/4 cup pineapple juice. Whisk until the cornstarch is completely dissolved. Add the cornstarch mixture to the pan and return to a simmer.
  6. Reduce the heat to medium low, add the 2 bell peppers, any color, seeded and chopped and simmer for 8 to 10 minutes (or until the meatballs finish cooking). The mixture will have thickened and reduced slightly.
  7. When the meatballs have finished cooking, add them to the sauce with the pineapple chunks. Simmer for 3 minutes to heat through.
  8. Remove from heat, top with 2 tbsp sliced green onions, for garnish and serve.

Notes

To store: Once cool, transfer leftover sweet and sour meatballs and sauce to an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before reheating. To reheat: transfer everything to a large skillet and set the pan over medium-low heat. Bring to a simmer and cook until heated all the way through. If necessary, add a little water to loosen the sauce.

Focus on Keeping Clean

Top 15 Dirtiest Places

1. Dish sponges and rags

2. Kitchen sink

3. Toothbrush holder

4. Pet bowl

5. Coffee machine reservoir

6. Bathroom faucet handle

7. Pet toy tennis ball

8. Countertop

9. Stove knobs

10. Cutting board

11. Toilet seat

12. Pens

13. Bathroom doorknob

14. Bathroom lightswitch

15. Microwave handle

Chicken – Safe Temperature

From House Outlook

While you might choose to ignore official temperature recommendations if  you prefer a medium-rare steak or a soft egg, most of us are happy to accept the guidance on chicken. The USDA specifies that chicken should reach an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit, but you may not need to cook your poultry as long as you think to guarantee food safety. Here’s why.

Cooking Chicken to a Safe Temperature

Here’s the thing about the USDA’s official temperature recommendations: They’re conservative by design, focusing on a temperature that will kill bacteria instantly. However, according to the USDA’s own guidance for commercial food producers, a lower temperature held for a longer time works just as well. For example, maintaining a temperature of 150 degrees Fahrenheit for exactly 52 seconds gives the same result. The problem is that food manufacturers have the resources to be that precise, and home cooks like us don’t. The good news is that we don’t have to.

That’s thanks to something called “carryover cooking.” When you remove a whole chicken (or a piece of chicken) from your stove, oven, or grill, a lot of heat is already trapped inside. This heat means the cooking process will continue, and the interior temperature will continue to rise. The bigger the cut, the more carryover cooking you’ll see. A whole chicken retains more heat than a leg quarter, which retains more heat than a boneless breast.

A Meat Thermometer Is Essential for Food Safety

So relax a little, and allow time for carryover cooking when preparing chicken. For a whole bird, you can safely pull it from the oven when the temperature hits 150 to 155 degrees Fahrenheit. For smaller cuts, 155 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit is a safe range. The only way to know for sure, however, is with an accurate meat thermometer. Check the temperature in a couple of places before you take the chicken off the heat, and then leave the thermometer in place while the meat rests for five to 10 minutes before serving. As long as the internal temperature stays at 155 degrees Fahrenheit or above (in the lowest-temperature part) for at least a minute or two, you’re golden.

NOTE FROM GRANDPA

THIS IS THE ONE THAT I GOT, AND IT’S GREAT

I ALSO GOT ONE OF THESE
TO CHECK PAN TEMPERATURE BEFORE COOKING

ARTICLE SUMMARY

Heat to internal temperature of  about 155º F

Carne Seca from Scratch

Homemade Carne Seca (Machaca)

Traditional Northern Mexican-style dried, seasoned shredded beef — eat as jerky or fry with eggs/onions/peppers for machaca

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds beef flank steak or eye of round, trimmed of fat
  • 1 lime, juiced
  • 4 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 tablespoons salt
  • 1 tablespoons black pepper, freshly ground
  • 2 tablespoons chili powder
  • 1 teaspoons ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoons smoked paprika
  • 1 teaspoons dried oregano (Mexican if available)
  • 2 tablespoons white vinegar
  • 0.5 teaspoons cayenne pepper (optional, for heat)

Steps

Slice the beef thin: Partially freeze the 2 pounds beef flank steak or eye of round, trimmed of fat for 45 minutes to firm it up, then slice against the grain into thin strips, about 1/4 inch thick. Thin, even strips dry more evenly.

Make the marinade: In a bowl, whisk together 1 lime, juiced, 4 garlic cloves, minced, 2 tablespoons salt, 1 tablespoons black pepper, freshly ground, 2 tablespoons chili powder, 1 teaspoons ground cumin, 1 teaspoons smoked paprika, 1 teaspoons dried oregano (Mexican if available), 2 tablespoons white vinegar, and 0.5 teaspoons cayenne pepper (optional, for heat) until combined into a wet rub.

Marinate the beef: Toss the beef strips thoroughly in the marinade, making sure every piece is coated. Cover and refrigerate for at least 8 hours, ideally overnight for deeper flavor.

Arrange for drying: Remove strips from the marinade, shaking off excess liquid. Lay them flat on dehydrator trays or on wire racks set over baking sheets, without overlapping.

Dry the meat: Dehydrate at 155-160°F for 6 hours, or use an oven on its lowest setting (around 170°F) with the door slightly cracked, until the strips are firm, dry, and dark but still slightly pliable (not brittle).

Cool and store: Let the dried beef cool completely to room temperature. Store in an airtight container or vacuum-sealed bag. It keeps 1-2 weeks at room temp, or 3-6 months refrigerated/frozen.

Shred for machaca (optional): To use as machaca, shred or pound the dried strips into fine threads using your hands, a mallet, or a food processor pulsed briefly. Fry the shredded meat with diced onion, tomato, and roasted green chile, then scramble in eggs if desired.

Notes

For a smokier, more traditional flavor, you can dry the strips outdoors in the sun (covered with cheesecloth to keep bugs off) over 1-2 days instead of using a dehydrator or oven — this is the classic method. If you don’t have a dehydrator, a home oven works fine, just watch it closely since ovens run hotter than ideal drying temps.

Results from the web

This gives you the base flavor profile most carne seca brands use (garlic, lime, chili, cumin), scaled around a 2 lb cut of beef — close to that 16 oz finished-product weight range once it dries down. Adjust the chili powder and cayenne to taste if you want it spicier or milder.

Flavor Bombs that Every Kitchen Should Have

  • Soy Sauce
  • Hot Sauce
  • Mustard
  • Chili Crisp
  • Pomegranate Syrup (Pomegranate Molasses)
  • Tamarind
  • Fish Sauce
  • Toasted Sesame Oil
  • Sambal Oelek or Chile Garlic Sauce
  • Good Vinegar (apple cider, balsamic, wine, sherry, rice)
  • Citrus Juice and Zest
  • Spice and Herb Blends (garam masala, harissa, za’atar, khmeli suneli)
  • Worcestershire Sauce
  • Homemade Condiments (make-your-own, no specific recipe given — just points to the cookbook This Will Make It Taste Good by Vivian Howard)

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

Cabbage Patties

    1. Cut/chop up a head of cabbage
    2. Boil 15 minutes
    3. Add 1 C flour
    4. Add seasonings
    5. Chopped onion – fried
      1. add garlic
      2. Add chopped fried bacon
      3. Add chopped sauteed mushrooms
    6. Add 2 eggs
    7. Mix and form  patties
    8. Fry 5 minutes each side
    9. Serve with dipping sace
      1. Egg, mustard, salt, veg oil, lemon juice, pepper
      2. Blend until like mayo with immersion blender

Breakfast Quesa-Pizza

Watch original video

    • Two tortillas
    • Two eggs
    • Cottage cheese (or feta)
    • Salt & Pepper (or GTP)
    • Parsley
    • Optional diced tomato
    • Optional meat
    • Grated Cheese
    1. Oil a pan slightly smaller in diameter than your tortillas
    2. Dip the edge of one tortilla in water, and put in pan
    3. Add 2 beaten eggs
    4. Sprinkle with cottage cheese or feta cheese
    5. Season
    6. Top with grated cheese
    7. Put other tortilla on top and flatten it – sealing edges
    8. Cover, put onto medium heat, and cook for about 10 minutes
    9. Butter top before flipping
    10. Carefully flip tortillas
    11. Cover for another 10 minutes
    12. Turn out on plate and cut into wedges

Banana Peel Bacon

Banana Peel Bacon

From  “It Doesn’t Taste Like Chicken!”
A vegan bacon recipe made from the banana peels that you would otherwise toss away. Crispy, chewy, smoky, salty, slightly sweet, and has a subtle hint of banana taste which is actually quite delicious! Make this the next time you peel a banana!
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 6 minutes
Marinating time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 16 minutes
Servings: 8 strips
Author: Sam Turnbull

Ingredients

    • 2 very ripe banana peels (from 2 bananas, I used organic bananas and washed them before making the bacon)
    • 3 tablespoon soy sauce
    • 1 tablespoon maple syrup
    • ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
    • ½ teaspoon garlic powder
    • 1 tablespoon light oil (or more if needed)

Instructions

  • The number one most important step is to use bananas that are very ripe. Stay far away from green bananas, the bacon will taste terrible. The riper the banana the better the flavour so pick bananas that are yellow with lots of brown spots. To prepare the banana peels: remove the peels from the bananas and tear into about 4 strips per banana. Use a spoon to lightly scrape off the white inside part of the banana peel leaving just the peel.
  • Make the marinade by mixing the soy sauce, maple syrup, smoked paprika, and garlic powder together in a dish that will fit your banana peels. Add the banana peels and toss to coat. Let marinade for a minimum of 10 minutes, but as long as a few hours.
  • When ready to cook the bacon, heat the oil in a large skillet or frying pan over medium heat. When hot add the peels and fry a couple of minutes per side, until they are golden and bubble up a little. It may get a little smoky as the sugars will burn so make sure to turn on your hood fan. Remove from pan and drain on paper towel. They should get crispier as they cool.

Notes

The nutrition listed is for 1 serving of the marinade and oil (⅛ of the recipe), the nutrition details for the banana will vary by size (on average, a banana has about 110 calories, 30g carbohydrates, 3g fiber, 19g sugar).

You will likely have leftover marinade. Feel free to make more banana peel bacon or to save the marinade for a few days in a container in the fridge to use again later.

*I used organic bananas and washed them before making the bacon.

Soy sauce: Several reviewers found this too salty (I like it that way), so if you prefer use a low sodium soy sauce or reduce the soy sauce to taste, and add water if needed.

Find it online:

https://itdoesnttastelikechicken.com/banana-peel-bacon/

Scan the QR code for updates, tips, and to ask me any questions!

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Hush Puppies – Food & Wine

NOTE FROM GRANDPA:  If you increase the liquid just a bit, and use a cast-iron Ebelskiver pan, you get very nice results.

Tender, Sizzling Hush Puppies

Fluffy hush puppies served with a sweet and spicy butter make for the ultimate appetizer.

By Joe Kindred
Published on September 21, 2023
Total Time: 35 mins
Servings: 10

Ingredients

    • Canola oil, for frying
    • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter (3 ounces), frozen
    • 1 yellow onion (about 6 ounces), peeled and halved lengthwise
    • 3/4 cup fine yellow cornmeal (such as Marsh Hen Mill Jimmy Red Cornmeal)
    • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour (about 2 1/8 ounces)
    • 2 teaspoons baking powder
    • 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
    • 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
    • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, plus more to taste
    • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
    • 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
    • 1/2 cup buttermilk
    • 2 large eggs, beaten

Directions

  1. Heat 2 inches of oil in a large Dutch oven over medium to 350°F. Meanwhile, grate frozen butter using the large holes of a box grater into a medium bowl; transfer butter to freezer. Grate onion using the large holes of box grater; squeeze onion in a double layer of paper towels to remove as much liquid as possible. Reserve 1/2 cup squeezed grated onion; discard any remaining grated onion or reserve for another use.

  2. Whisk together cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder in a large bowl until well combined. Whisk together buttermilk, eggs, and grated onion in a separate medium bowl until well combined. Pour buttermilk mixture over cornmeal mixture, and top with frozen grated butter. Fold together until just combined. Batter will be a thick pancake batter consistency.

  3. Working in batches, drop spoonfuls of batter (about 1 1/2 tablespoons each) into hot oil, being careful not to overcrowd. Cook, turning occasionally, until crispy, golden brown and cooked through, about 3 minutes. Transfer hush puppies to a paper towel–lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with additional salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.

Baked Beans – Food & Wine

Food & Wine

Gina Mae’s Baked Beans

Dress up store-bought barbecue sauce with extra brown sugar and apple cider vinegar for these smoky, tangy beans — a must at any cookout.

By Regina Bradley
Updated on July 8, 2025
Active Time: 35 mins
Total Time: 1 hr 45 mins
Servings: 8

Ingredients

    • 3 bacon slices
    • 1 pound 85% lean ground beef
    • 3/4 cup finely chopped Vidalia onion
    • 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
    • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
    • 1/2 teaspoon cracked black pepper
    • 1 cup barbecue sauce (such as Sweet Baby Ray’s Original Barbecue Sauce)
    • 1/4 cup light brown sugar
    • 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
    • 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
    • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
    • 2 (22-ounce) cans baked beans (such as Bush’s Bourbon and Brown Sugar Grillin’ Beans)

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Place bacon slices in a single layer in a 12-inch skillet. Cook over medium-low, flipping occasionally, until browned and crisp, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer bacon to a plate lined with paper towels; reserve drippings in skillet.

  2. Increase heat under skillet to medium and add ground beef. Cook, stirring occasionally, until beef is crumbly and just browned, about 6 minutes. Remove from heat. Push beef to one side of skillet; tilt skillet to let drippings drain to empty side. Using paper towels, carefully soak up drippings; discard.

  3. Return skillet to heat over medium and add onion, garlic, salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is softened, about 5 minutes. Add barbecue sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, paprika, and cinnamon; stir until well combined. Stir in baked beans and bring mixture to a simmer over medium, stirring often. Pour mixture into a 2 1/2-quart baking dish.

  4. Bake beans, uncovered, in preheated oven until bubbling in center, about 50 minutes. Crumble bacon evenly over top and bake 10 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes before serving.

Make ahead

Beans can be made up to 3 days in advance, covered, and stored in the refrigerator. Let them come to room temperature before reheating. You can also freeze baked beans. Like all beans in sauce, it’s a dish that both freezes and defrosts exceptionally well.

Cast Iron Cornbread – Food & Wine

Cheddar and Jalapeño Cast-Iron Cornbread

Get your cast-iron pan ready — it’s cornbread season.

By Tiffany Derry
Updated on June 19, 2025
Active Time:
15 mins
Total Time:
55 mins
Yield:
12 servings

Ingredients

    • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
    • 2 cups all-purpose flour (about 8 1/2 ounces)
    • 1 cup yellow cornmeal (about 5 3/4 ounces)
    • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
    • 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
    • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
    • 2 cups whole milk
    • 8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (about 2 cups)
    • 1 cup fresh or thawed frozen corn kernels (from 2 ears)
    • 1/2 cup unsalted butter (4 ounces), melted
    • 2 tablespoons fresh jalapeno, chopped
    • 2 large eggs, beaten
    • Softened unsalted butter, honey, and smoked flaky sea salt, for serving

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Heat a 10-inch cast-iron skillet over medium. Add butter, and swirl pan until butter is melted and bottom and sides of skillet are coated. Remove from heat, and set aside.

  2. Whisk together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Make a well in center of dry ingredients; add milk, cheddar, corn, melted butter, jalapeño, and eggs. Mix until batter is just combined. (Be sure not to overmix or cornbread will be tough.) Pour batter into prepared skillet, and spread evenly. Bake in preheated oven until cornbread is light brown on top and a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes.

  3. Cut cornbread into slices. Smear tops of slices with softened butter, drizzle with honey, and sprinkle with smoked flaky sea salt, if desired.

Originally appeared in Food & Wine magazine, October 2023

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