Muffin Tin Ham and Cheese Cups
Tags: Breakfast
Yield: 6
- 1 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 1/2 tbsp flour
- 1 1/4 cups milk (full fat works best, though low fat does work)
- 1/3 cup grated gruyere cheese (or tasty or cheddar), plus extra for sprinkling
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp salt
- Black pepper
- 6 large slices of fresh white bread (Notes 1 and 2)
- 2 tbsp melted butter (salted or unsalted)
- 6 eggs
- 100 g / 3 oz leg ham
- Fresh parsley , finely chopped
- Freshly ground nutmeg
- Turn the oven on to 180C/350F.
- Cut the crusts off the bread, then roll out with a rolling pin until flattened.
- Press the bread into Texas muffin tins to form cups. Place into the oven (even if it is still heating up) for 5 minutes, just to dry the bread out a bit (Note 3). Don't let it brown.
- Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium high heat. Add the flour and stir until a paste forms.
- Add half the milk and whisk until the sauce thickens - around 1 minute.
- Add the remaining milk, Dijon mustard, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Keep whisking because once the milk heats up, it thickens very quickly. Whisk until the sauce is thick enough to coat the spoon thickly (around 1 1/2 to 2 minutes), around the consistency of tomato ketchup.
- Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes. The sauce will thicken considerably as it cools. Then stir the cheese in.
- Brush the melted butter around the edges of the toast cups (to help them brown nicely).
- Divide the ham between the toast cups, then carefully crack an egg into each.
- Top with Bechamel Cheese Sauce, then sprinkle each with a pinch of grated cheese.
- Bake for 18 minutes (for runny yolks) to 23 minutes (firm yolks). (Note 4)
- Rest for a few minutes, then sprinkle with parsley and a grating of fresh nutmeg.
- Serve immediately.
- The original recipe calls for ordinary small sandwich bread which fits into ordinary muffin tin / cupcake tins. However, it is slightly too small for ham + egg + cheese sauce. So the original recipe actually includes an instruction to use small eggs or to discard a bit of the whites (which is actually quite tricky to do).
- I tried to make it with ordinary sandwich bread in cupcake / standard muffin tins and found that it overflowed and just made a mess.
- However, if you make this using the larger size sandwich bread in Texas muffin tins, then it is the perfect size! The bread slices I used were around 13 x 13 cm (just over 5 x 5"), including the crust.
- This needs to be made with fresh bread. If it is not fresh, then you can't roll it flat which makes it impossible to mould into the muffin thin.
- The purpose of popping the bread cups into the oven even while it is coming to temperature is to dry the moulded bread out a bit. This serves 2 purposes: a) helps the cups come out crispy; and b) to reduce the amount the egg and/or cheese sauce is soaked up by the bread (which makes the cups soggy).
- Remove the toast cups from the oven while the eggs are still a touch underdone (i.e. still looks jiggly) because the egg continues to cook in the residual heat.
