“The Rebel Within” Knockoff

There is so much I have to tell you about this recipe that I hardly know where to begin. So, how about at the beginning?

Almost exactly one year ago, on January 30, 2013, I wrote about how Marissa and I had gone into a kitchen store in San Francisco and found wonderful watercolor postcards of famous dishes from various San Francisco restaurants. We framed the postcards and they now hang in Marissa’s kitchen. One dish, in particular, caught our fancy. It is a breakfast muffin from Craftsman & Wolves.

The next day, 1/31/13, I tried to recreate “The Rebel Within” at home. Although the end product was tasty, it was not at all what I was looking for… there was no runny egg yolk in the middle of a baked muffin.

Fast-forward almost a year to January 22, 2014, when I wrote about how Marissa and I finally went to Craftsman & Wolves and tasted “The Rebel Within” for ourselves and about my renewed passion to try to recreate it at home.

Just as I had done back in January 2013, I went online to research what I could about how it would be possible to bake a whole egg in a muffin and get it to be “soft-boiled” with a runny yolk.

Via

First, I stumbled upon this website and read up on “egg cookery” – I then found out that two wonderful women had “cracked the code” to The Rebel Within. They went through dozens of eggs and baked more muffins than I would have ever had the patience to bake… and they did it!

Via

Tuesday morning, I used their method.  The result?

Although my “Rebel Within” was not as beautiful, as perfect, or as tall and well-shaped as the muffins at Craftsman & Wolves or as the muffins the brilliant women at Follow Me Foodie baked, it tasted exactly like the muffin Marissa and I enjoyed at Craftsman & Wolves!  And the yolk – it was perfectly runny!

If you would like to make this masterpiece at home, I’ve posted the recipe here, the majority of which is copy/pasted from the Follow Me Foodie post, with just bits and pieces of my own additions and omissions.

I still strongly suggest you go to the Follow Me Foodie recipe post and read from top to bottom about their trials and tests and all of their tips and suggestions. It’s truly amazing and a really good read, even if you do not plan to bake the muffins. There’s a whole boatload of interesting information, dedication, perseverance and patience to be seen there!

If you don’t have the time to read it all, allow me to let you in on a few of the notes that I found to be more important:

The recipe makes six muffins. Even so, I suggest you start with 12 eggs, as I did when you’re making the Extra-Soft Boiled Eggs. Of the 12 eggs I started with, seven turned out perfectly.

Another two would have been “usable” but were less than perfect … and the remaining three … completely unusable.

It is imperative that you “warm” the eggs before dropping them in the boiling water. Use hot tap water to do so. I actually brought the eggs to room temperature first, and then let them sit in the hot tap water for the amount of time it took the water that the eggs would be cooked in to come to a boil. Even so, two of the eggs cracked almost immediately as they were placed in the boiling water. I took those out and discarded them straight off the bat. They were two of the “completely unusable” eggs mentioned above.

Via

The Follow Me Foodie women used bacon for their recipe, I used breakfast sausage, just as they do at the C&W. As much as I love bacon, I’d suggest going with sausage for this.

Be certain to boil the eggs for EXACTLY 4 minutes and 30 seconds. If you want to achieve that runny yolk, this is the most important part of the recipe.

The Follow Me Foodie women suggest that you either use a popover pan or a large muffin tin. I have 2 popover pans, so of course, I used a popover pan. I can’t begin to imagine how it would work in a muffin tin. It wouldn’t be tall enough.

If you don’t own a popover pan, buy one or borrow one! If you live anywhere near me, you can borrow mine.

Once the muffins were done baking and had cooled, I found it easiest to remove them by placing a baking sheet on top and flipping it over, then gently lifting the popover pan off. Because of how much they overflowed, I feared that the tops would rip off if I tried to “lift” them out of the molds individually. This is the method that worked for me.

Finally, when peeling the extra-soft boiled eggs, take care to gently crack all over. While peeling the last couple of eggs, my mind was wandering and I failed to do so. The egg on the left is what happened as a result of not cracking all over. The egg on the right is an example of how to do it correctly.

Oh, and to those of you who so generously and selflessly volunteered to be taste-testers … I’ll have to soft-boil and bake up another batch. Those first six muffins are long gone, my friends!

“The Rebel Within” Knockoff

Extra-Soft Boiled Eggs
10 to 12 large eggs
1 teaspoon salt
 
Muffin Batter
6 breakfast sausage links
1/2 cup peeled and minced shallots
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
3/4 cup grated white cheddar cheese
3/4 cup grated Gruyère cheese
2 ½ cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 ¼ cups buttermilk, slightly warmed
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
2 eggs, lightly beaten with a fork
1/3 cup finely sliced chives or green onion (green portion only)

 

Extra-Soft Boiled Eggs:  Place the eggs in a bowl and cover with warm tap water for at least 15 minutes, change the water once it cools down, and replacing it with hot tap water to temper the eggs so they won’t crack when placed in the boiling water.

Bring a medium pan of water to a full rolling boil.

While the pot of water is coming up to a boil, in a large bowl, prepare an ice bath with very cold tap water and at least 4 cups of ice cubes. Also, get a timer ready to be set for exactly 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I used the timer on my iPhone. I set it for 4 minutes (it doesn’t have a second timer) and once the timer went off, I just watched the second hand on a wall clock for the remaining 30 seconds.

Once the pot of water is boiling, add the salt. Gently but quickly lower the eggs into the water with a spider strainer or a large spoon. The spider is the best, it allowed me to place 6 eggs at a time into the water.

Once all the eggs are in the boiling water, immediately start the timer.

When the eggs have boiled for the allotted time, immediately transfer them to the ice bath with the same spider or large spoon.

As soon as the eggs are cool enough to handle but still very warm, remove them from the ice water. I did this within 30 or 40 seconds.

Gently tap one egg at a time on the kitchen counter, at the top and bottom ends of the egg, and then a few taps all around the sides. Be sure to gently tap around the tip of the narrow end to make more small cracks; this is the trickiest section to peel. Do not use too much force or else the cooked egg white will split open.

Peel each egg under a thin stream of cool running water. Hold the egg vertically in one hand with widest end of the egg facing upwards and start peeling from the cracks in the wide end. Be sure to peel off the thin membrane as well, then work your way gently around the egg in a spiral. Carefully pry the tip of your index finger under the eggshell as you go to separate it from the egg. The trickiest section to peel is at the last third, where the narrowest part of the egg is. Be very careful here when separating the white from the shell. If the white sticks to the shell in one spot, try to peel it from a different spot.

Place the each of eggs back into the ice water as they are peeled. Add more ice to the bowl, as it melts. Keep the eggs in the ice water as you make the batter.

Muffins: In a large skillet, cook the breakfast sausage according to package directions, or until cooked through and browned all over. Remove to paper towels to drain. Do not wash the skillet.

Cut each sausage in half lengthwise, and then each half in half lengthwise again, so you have 4 lengths from each sausage. Dice all the sausage lengths and set them aside.

Heat the skillet you cooked the sausage in and sauté the shallots over medium heat until they are soft and translucent and just begin to color a light brown. Remove skillet from heat and set aside.

Place an oven rack in the middle position and then preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Grease the insides and top edges of a 6-hole popover pan with melted butter, and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, pepper, and baking soda.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, warmed buttermilk, and melted butter until combined.

Pour the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture, and stir, using a rubber spatula, until the ingredients are mostly combined. Do not overmix; there should be a few clumps of flour that are still visible.

In another bowl, combine the three kinds of cheese. Remove 1/2 cup of the cheese mixture to a small bowl and set aside. This smaller portion will be used to top the muffins just before baking.

Add the rest of the cheese to the batter, along with the diced sausage, sautéed shallots, and green onions. Stir until they are just combined with the rest of the batter.

Using an ice cream scoop or a large spoon, scoop about 2 tablespoons of the batter into the bottom of each popover mold.

Use a small spoon to press the batter into the bottom of each cup and to make a small depression in the middle of the batter.

Carefully remove one egg at a time from the ice water and gently blot dry with a paper towel. Set one soft-boiled egg, upright, into the depression of each popover cup.

Use a rubber spatula to transfer the rest of the muffin batter into a disposable piping bag and tightly twist the top. Cut the tip of the bag off to at least 3/4-inch wide so that the cheese and sausage won’t get clogged in the hole.

Pipe the batter around each egg in a spiral pattern, filling the rest of the cup and completely covering the egg.

Be a little more generous at the top because the batter will slide off a little (in my case – a lot) as it bakes …

… as you do not want the top of the egg to become exposed.

Sprinkle the reserved cheese on top of the muffins. Place the popover pan on a baking sheet pan to catch the overflow.

Bake the muffins for 17 minutes, rotating the pan about halfway through the baking time. The tops of the muffins should be golden brown, and the cheese is melted into a firm crust.

Allow the muffins to cool for at least 15 minutes before removing them from the pan.

Slice in half, impress yourself and your guests, and ENJOY!

Makes 6 amazing muffins