Perfect Baked Hard Boiled Eggs In The Oven

This is not the first, second, or even third time I have tried to bake eggs. My first couple of endeavors were on the advice of Alton Brown, one of his numerous egg cooking videos. 99% of the time that man can do no wrong, but this was a disaster. He recommended a damp towel lining the oven rack, and then just line the eggs on the rack. I ruined two towels AND two dozen eggs. They had dark brown spots wherever they touched the metal, even with the thick, wet towel to supposedly help buffer them. They were near-impossible to peel. The second attempt I mentioned was just with a much wetter towel, hoping it wouldn’t burn like the first. It did. Same result with the eggs, too. I even wondered if the oven temp was wrong, and tested the interior. It was fine.

At some point, I don’t remember where the technique was from, but I tried baking eggs in shell again. This one was just putting them on a small rack with some water underneath for steam. Same. Thing. Again. Brown burned parts and peels that wouldn’t remove.

And sadly, I had an equally bad experience here. I thought to myself, “Hm! Maybe the muffin tin will keep them separate and protect them from overheating. Yeah, no, wrong. Browned bits wherever they touched the sides, and actually, the eggs were very inconsistent. Some of them were soft boil consistency, with parts of the white being like a jelly texture, even, while others were totally hard. Same problem with the shells. I wasted SO much egg here just peeling them, and I know every peeling trick out there. NONE of them worked.

So just as a thought: I feel like you should remove this or redirect it to your actual boiled-egg article. There are too many factors that can impact the results when you think about it. Are the eggs room temperature or cold when they go in? If they’re room temp, what is “room temp”? How large is large? What if someone’s oven is a few degrees off? (Most people don’t test to see if the temp is exactly on the nose very often, if at all.) What about differences in humidity and altitude? Is there any way to fix the ugly brown scorch marks without risking setting your house on fire by putting a towel in the oven? And on and on.

It’s great for you if you’ve got everything down to every single magical factor, where this works out for you. But I’ve tried repeatedly to bake eggs in shell, it’s always a total disaster, and there are other people here saying the same thing. Baking is too inconsistent to recommend to anyone, in my opinion, when they could be boiling their eggs and getting a perfect result. Even if this batch had come out properly cooked, there’s still the matter of the peels. I’ve never, ever baked them and not had them be horribly stuck to the shells, ice bath or no ice bath. And this particular time, I used a package of eggs that had been in my fridge for at least a week and a half; they weren’t ‘too fresh’ by any means.

At the very least, maybe encourage people to do a test run with a couple of eggs first, instead of throwing in a whole batch at once. And it’s also worth noting that I have done these baked eggs in shell experiments in different ovens, in different locations. It’s not ‘just me’, not my equipment, etc. It really is just a bad technique compared to boiling.

PS- Love most of your recipes. I made something similar to the cauliflower ziti tonight, and it was to die for. Just.. these eggs, sweetie. Nah.

I made these eggs the 1st time with extra lg eggs yesterday. They cam out perfect. Today I didn’t think and used jumbo and did the exact same thing, today they came out very soft boiled! What was i thinking? lol
I must admit though yesterday’s eggs did have a much creamer yolk then any I have ever had on top of stove.

These always come out amazing! The only issue I have is that I get tiny “burnt” spots where the egg touches my muffin tin. I think that a silicone muffin tray might eliminate that issue, but I’m worried it might also extend the cooking time. Either way, these always come out SO good. Much easier than cooking on the stove top (and almost no mess to clean afterwards!).

I love the detail and most especially visuals . Thanks and can’t wait to try this out!

I must have have a hot oven. I was going for gooey at 23 minutes and got hard boiled instead.
I love marinated soft boiled eggs. Alas, I’ll have to eat the batch as is and try again next time.
I think I’ll try 17 or 18 minutes next time.

Tried this and it worked out well! I don’t usually have ice at home so I used cold running water. Which made a 25 minute cooking time the equivalent of your 28-minute eggs. But I did notice an error in your post when you talked about the myth of exploding eggs. You said, “as long as you follow my time chart, you SHOULD have explosions while cooking eggs in the oven.” I imagine you meant shouldn’t haha!

May I suggest you call them hard baked eggs or soft baked eggs? You are not boiling them in any water. You are just baking them in their shell. By the way I hard baked eggs following your instructions and they came out great. What a great idea.

This may seriously be one of the most brilliant things I have ever seen! Thanks for including the visual chart.

Cooked large eggs from the fridge for 20 minutes and they came out rock hard. My husband has banned me from cooking them this way ever again.

Should the eggs be at room temperature or fresh from the refrigerator before putting in oven? Thanks. Looking forward to cooking hard boiled eggs in the oven!