my kitchen: baked eggs in toast cups

I'd spied this recipe a long time ago in a magazine, probably Rachael Ray or Food Magazine when I still had a subscription. It looked easy to do, but for some reason I never found the motivation to do it. Finally this past Sunday, I was craving quiche and used this as a substitute for the craving. It's pretty quick and you could make your own combination of flavors for the eggs or just enjoy the simplicity of the baked egg. The possibilities are seriously endless!

I made two versions, one with just plain eggs scrambled, and the other was was more custard-like, like a creamy crustless quiche. The toast works a quick crust, for those of us too lazy busy to work up a pie dough.

BAKED EGGS IN TOAST CUPS

- Egg
- Slice of toast with edges cut off
- Cheese
- Salt and pepper
- Butter

Additional ingredients for crustless egg quiche
- Milk
- Ham
- Mushrooms
- Pesto
- Bacon or Proscuitto
- Flour

Ingredients for baked french toast cups

- Eggs
- Bread crusts
- Milk
- Sugar
- Cinnamon

1. Cut off crusts off of the slice of bread. Butter the muffin pan and press bread into the muffin pan.

2. Crack egg directly into muffin pan, or scramble in a bowl. Stir in cheese and put some atop. I used grated cheddar, but you could use anything. Next time I might try goat cheese or colby jack. Gruyere or mozzarella would be great too. If you have any bacon on hand, you could swirl it atop as well.

3. For a custard type egg, add milk to scramble egg. I also added chopped mushrooms and ham and a spoonful of pesto for 2-3 eggs. Other options could be tomatoes, red pepper, broccoli, anything you'd toss into a quiche. I added a little bit of flour as well, since I ran out of toast and didn't have a crust for these.

4. Bake at 180C/35F degrees for 15-20 minutes, depending on how well done you like your eggs.

5. You can also chop up the bread crusts to put in the muffin pan and add sugar and cinnamon to the milk and eggs and pour atop for a baked french toast custard cup. I had poured some leftover milk, egg and cheese mixture on the bread crusts and it was surprisingly tasty as a savory casserole, but next time I'm going to make it sweet to go with the egg dish.