Is it possible to hard-boil eggs with a hot water heater?

I live in a college dorm and this is the only appliance available to me. I was wondering, if I boiled water with the electric heater and then added the boiled water to a bowl of eggs and covered them, how long would I need to keep them covered in the boiling water? If anyone has an alternate method to suggest, I'd love to hear it! Thanks!

Rachel Schumm
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4 Comments

Sam1148 April 2, 2014
Would your dorm allow a rice cooker? A simple one button "Rival" model is about 20 bucks. It'll get hot enough to hard cook and egg in water.
As a bonus, it also has a steamer basket that fits on top of the device so you can steam some fish or veggies at the same time. Even good for making stews etc.
There are a few rice cooker cookbooks on the market.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Pot-How-Use-It-ebook/dp/B004W9B94G/ref=pd_sim_kstore_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1MRJ19AD8SRBV3FT97DJ

One warning those don't bother springing for a expensive fuzzy logic one with a hinged lid. The simple "one button" with autoshut off and steamer basket is what you want for 1-2 person dorm cooking.


 
Felicia M. April 2, 2014
You can always boil the eggs in the electric heater, if that option is available to you. But I think that you'll get eggs that aspires to be hard boiled without actually getting there.
 
sfmiller April 2, 2014
You can definitely make this work. I did it when I was living on the road in grad school research trips. It takes some experimentation to get the timing just right, but the failures are edible, and eggs are cheap.

I could cook two or three eggs at a time in the heater pot itself. Bring to a hard boil, let cook for a couple minutes, then turn off the heat, cover the pot, and wait another 15 minutes or so. Just how long will depend on the size and material of the pot and the starting temperature of the eggs. Wrap a towel or something around the (turned-off!) heater to hold in the heat.

You could cook more eggs at a time using the method you describe, but you'd probably have to replenish the boiling water partway through. I doubt the first pour would have enough heat to cook the eggs all the way. It would take less time if you started with room temperature eggs it in a well-insulated, covered container like a styrofoam mini-cooler.

You can also McGyver a double boiler by setting a small stainless steel bowl on top of the open heater pot. You can get it hot enough to scramble eggs or poach fish.
 
Dave O. April 1, 2014
I'm not really sure what kind of heater you have, but I'm 99.9% sure this won't work. I would either find a friend w a stove and boil a weeks worth, or get a microwave and make scrambled eggs. I always bought eggs, cheese and tortillas. Just scramble the eggs in a bowl, microwave for 1 minute, and wrap w cheese and tortilla.
 
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