Archive for: soft boiled eggs

Cook’s Illustrated Tests Egg Toppers

An egg topper is a kitchen gadget that you really only need if you like soft boiled eggs. But if you do, you know the value of a gadget that will neatly slice off the top of an egg – shell and all – to allow you to easily get to the perfectly cooked center with your spoon or with a stick of buttery toast. Egg toppers work neatly and quickly, and I’ve also used mine (which is pictured above) to make cool looking egg cups to serve puddings and panna cotta in.

Cook’s Illustrated recently (Jan/Feb 2013) put some toppers to the test to see which ones worked the best. They found that egg toppers come in two styles: scissor and spring-loaded. The scissor models worked faster and were significantly cheaper, but cut less cleanly. The spring toppers worked like little plungers, pulling the tops off with much more precision, but were triple the cost of the scissor models. In the end, the test kitchen team opted for the easier-to-use plunger models over the scissor style, despite the price difference.  The winner was the Rosle Egg Topper, which was very precise and reliably topped eggs time and again. Their second choice topper was made by Paderno World Cuisine, which topped the eggs cleanly, but often cracked the bottom shell as well. Their last choice was the scissor style Fox Run Topper, which did get the job done, but not as neatly as the spring-loaded competition.

What is an egg topper?

Years ago, I was watching an episode of the original Japanese Iron Chef and was amazed to see one of the chefs cut the top of an eggshell off, cleanly, with a knife and then use the eggshell as a serving cup. I had seen eggshells used as serving cups on occasion before then, but the ease with which he sliced it off made a big impact – and made me want to do it myself. I’ve had some success in this department, but it seems safer and easier to use an egg topper.

An egg topper is a little gadget that is designed to cut the top off of an egg. They’re generally used to cut the tops off of soft-boiled eggs, cutting through the shell of the egg and removing the top piece of the egg white within to reveal the soft-cooked center. Simply place the ring around the narrowest part of the egg and squeeze the scissor-like handle to have a series of sharp, knife-like “teeth” poke through the eggshell. It works much more easily than trying to remove the top of the egg with a knife, and it is much more effective than carefully cracking the egg and peeling back the “lid” by hand.

I use a topper to make egg cups for dishes like my White Chocolate Easter Egg Panna Cotta. The gadget is small and inexpensive, and you get a big reaction when you serve a dessert this way. That said, you’ll definitely get a bit more use out of it if you are a fan of soft-boiled eggs.