An Electric Egg Cooker Saves Water and Energy—Just in Time for Easter Egg Dyeing!

Posted by rebecca

25 Mar

The perfect hard-boiled egg. I’ve baked croissants from scratch, concocted dozens of mouth-watering tarts and quiches, and made my own yogurt and ice cream without incident—but somehow the perfect boiled egg alluded me. If I wanted tender whites and a delicate, bright yellow yolk without a greenish sulphur ring, then I could barely pry the shells off the eggs. But if I over cooked them (or just let them boil away unattended as many people do), the eggs ended up rubbery.

Henrietta Hen Electric Egg Cooker

I followed directions from Julia Child and Cook’s Illustrated. I used gallons of water and shocked the eggs in ice baths. I sat hunched over the stove and watched the pot because I knew one should never, ever let the water actually boil.

Finally, after all this angst, I bought an electric egg cooker. This simple device delivers perfectly-cooked hard-boiled eggs and uses just a few tablespoons of water. It saves energy, too. Using the stovetop method I had to bring three quarts of water to a near-boil to cook just four eggs (because you should use an inch of water over the eggs to ensure proper cooking once you turn the water off and let them finish setting). The egg cooker takes just fifteen minutes or so to cook up to seven eggs at a time.

Kalorik 7-egg cooker

If you eat hard-cooked eggs just once a year for Easter, you can probably just use the stovetop method. We use the egg cooker about once a week and eat the eggs for snacks and on salads. Our egg cooker also delivers soft-cooked and poached eggs, but I haven’t had the opportunity to test these features out. Best of all, the eggs are always perfectly cooked, and the shells come off easily.

West Bend Automatic Egg Cooker

I have this basic West Bend Automatic Egg Cooker ($29.61). This Kalorik 7-egg cooker is cute and costs just under $25.00! The Henrietta Hen egg cooker costs just $19 from some sellers. I’m intrigued by this Nordic Ware microwave egg cooker. It costs just $8 and wouldn’t require you to buy another plug-in appliance! Hm . . . maybe I could get my hands on that microwave cooker in time for Easter egg dyeing season . . . because I really need yet another gadget!

Nordic Ware Microwave Egg Cooker

Filed under: Product Reviews

RSS feed for comments on this post

5 Responses for "An Electric Egg Cooker Saves Water and Energy—Just in Time for Easter Egg Dyeing!"

Carol Kelley March 25th, 2010 at 6:08 am 1
I’ve used Henrietta for years. She’s almost worn out.It’s much easier than the stovetop method.
Amy March 25th, 2010 at 10:43 am 2
Hi, I can appreciate how tricky it is to get the perfect hard boiled egg. The egg cooker seems like a great device because I hate watching the pot and using all that gas to get the water to a near boil. I will look for one locally.

But I wanted to let you know that your eggs are tricky to peel because of their freshness, not the cooking method. Fresher eggs don’t pull away from their shells as well. I can remember that my grandmother (who had chickens) used to leave her eggs out on the kitchen table and wouldn’t use them to hard boil until they had sat out for a few days or a week. They needed to dehydrate (the shells are not perfect barriers and the eggs do lose small amounts of fluid over time). With today’s refrigeration, it takes even longer for those eggs to dehydrate enough to be easy to peel. I usually don’t have a problem with the eggs I buy from a grocery store as they have usually sat around for a few weeks before I actually get to buy them. But if I get farm fresh eggs (yum!) I leave them in my fridge for a week or two if I want to boil them. And for those of you grossing out…eggs are good in a fridge for at least 10 weeks; you can look that up.

Happy egg cooking!
rebecca March 25th, 2010 at 11:12 am 3
Amy, thanks for the egg info! I have heard that about the freshness of the eggs before. One reason the shells come off more easily when you cook them in an egg cooker is because you pierce them first. This pierces the membrane between the shell and the whites and lets that air escape. I suppose you could do this with the stovetop method as well.

I have no qualms with using older eggs . . . I was under the impression that eggs lasted about six months in the fridge. (Now someone’s REALLY grossing out! We go through eggs quickly, so I haven’t actually tested this theory or anything.)
Gretchen March 26th, 2010 at 2:05 pm 4
This device sounds cool, but I always wonder about the “green-ness” of buying new devices and gadgets that serve only one purpose. Yes, it sounds like it may save water and energy, but what about the water, energy, plastic, and resources that were used to create the gadget in the first place? We eat hard-boiled eggs all the time, too, but I think that I would prefer using Amy’s method of leaving the eggs in the fridge longer before boiling them in a multi-purpose pot and poking the holes myself rather than buying a one-purpose device which will eventually just end up in a landfill.
rebecca March 26th, 2010 at 3:15 pm 5
Gretchen, I always wonder about that, too. You hear, for example, that it’s “greener” to wash dishes with a dish washer instead of by hand. However, is that factoring in the production of the dishwasher? And the fact that dishwashers supposedly have a lifespan of just 10 years, after which they have to be recycled and replaced?

I don’t think buying an egg cooker is actually a green decision overall . . . but as long as I am buying an appliance, it’s nice to know that it’s saving some water and energy when it’s being used.

(And I also recently bought a dishwasher; I’d lived without one for the last 18 years. And while it may not be greener to buy an appliance that’s going to be replaced every 10-15 years, I am definitely appreciating it. It saves a LOT of time and thousands of gallons of water each year. By the time it needs replacing, I hope the energy savings is even better.)