It's a simple dish: it needs just four ingredients (bread, butter, salt, and an egg) and couldn't be easier to make—cut out a circle from the middle of a piece of bread and cook an egg in the empty space. But the name for this iconic breakfast food is anything but simple.
We realized that when Nancy Romaine DeWitt posted a photo of her breakfast, called eggs in the nest in Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer's cookbook Golden, our Baking Club's book of the month. A few different names popped up in the comments, and when we polled Club members, "egg in a hole" and "toad in a hole" were the runaway favorites (the former has a slight edge in popularity over the latter). They were far from the only options though, we ended up with more than 25 names for the same dish:
- Egg in a hole
- Egg in a hat
- Egg in a nest
- Egg in a basket
- Egg in a window
- Egg in the eye
- Egg in a frame
- Egg in a pocket
- Egg in bread
Mona Martin Davies says, "My husband calls it egg in a hat. His dad toasted the cut-out circle and put it on top, so it did look like a hat."
- Picture frame eggs
- Bullseye eggs
- Betty Grable eggs
- Bob Smith egg
- Buzzy egg
- Egg surprise
- Peek-a-boo egg
- Rocky Mountain eggs
- Pop-eyes
- Egg in a blanket
Kayla Mize shares: "For some reason, my family called it a buzzy egg when I was growing up. I can't seem to find a reference to that online, so I have to assume this is a weird made-up thing."
- Egyptian toast
- Sunshine toast
- Holy toast
- An egg toastie
Heather McKimmey calls it holy toast, explaining, "it went from a hole for an egg toast to holy toast somehow."
- Toad in a hole
- Birds in a nest/bird's nest
- Chicken eye
- Egyptian eyes
- Moon over Miami
- Boy Scout sandwich
Erica Stokes Lowther says: "We call it toad in the hole, though I know that the English dish toad in the hole isn't the same at all. And my husband is English. Go figure."
Did we miss one? Fill us in below.
Written by: Lindsay-Jean Hard
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We came up with:
Egg-in-a-hole - Egg-with-a-hat - Egg-in-a-trashcan - Egg-in-the-basket - Egg-in-a-nest - Egg-in-the-middle - Egg-in-a-cage - Egg-in-a-window - Egg-in-a-pocket - Egg-in-a-well - Egg-in-a-frame - Egg-in-jail - Bird's nest - Toad-in-the-road - Bull's eye - The Popeye - Fireman's toast - Cowboy eggs - Polish eggs - Lighthouse eggs - Birmingham eggs - Guesthouse eggs - Gashouse egg - Sunshine eggs - Hole-in-one - Peek-a-boo eggs. AND in a confusing twist to my British friends; Toad-in-a-hole, which in the UK is sausage links baked in a Yorkshire pudding batter.
I'm now at Day 1326, if you're interested.
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