Ox-Eyes
6 eggs 6 tablespoons cream 6 inch-thick slices of bread 4 tablespoons butter With a three inch cutter, cut bread into rounds. Cut a small ring one and one-half inch in diameter and take out enough crumb to replace with egg; brush with melted butter and brown in quick oven. Moisten each with 1 tablespoon of cream; break a fresh egg into each, season with salt and pepper and cook in moderate oven until white is set.
A baked version of egg-in-toast, written with the terseness typical of a flour-company pamphlet. Two lines need unpacking before you start.
- Read the bread line correctly"6 inch-thick slices of bread" means six slices cut one inch thick, not slices six inches thick. A day-old white loaf cut by hand works better than sandwich bread, which is too thin to hold an egg.
- The hollow, not a holeThe inner 1½-inch ring is scored and the crumb scooped out to make a well, not punched through. Leave a floor of at least a quarter inch of bread or the cream and egg run out onto the pan.
- Oven temperaturesA "quick oven" is roughly 400-425F and a "moderate oven" roughly 350-375F, though period sources vary. The two-stage approach matters: the toast has to be crisp and golden before the egg goes in, because it will not brown again once wet.
- CreamA tablespoon per round. Unqualified "cream" in books of this period could mean anything from top milk to heavy cream; a richer cream cushions the yolk and keeps the base from drying, while a thinner one is likelier to soak into the crumb.
- TimingThe original gives none. At 350°F expect 12–15 minutes for whites set with a soft yolk, a few minutes longer for firm. Whites and yolks set at different temperatures, so check from about ten minutes and pull them the moment the white loses its translucency.
- The panButter a shallow baking sheet or set the rounds in a buttered shallow dish. Anything with high sides traps steam and softens the toast you just crisped.
- YieldSix, one per person as a breakfast or supper dish. The rounds cut from the crumb make good croutons rather than waste.
The name is often said to come from the look of the finished dish: a yellow yolk staring out of a ring of browned bread. Egg-baked-in-bread appears under a scatter of names in English and American cookery — ox-eye, bull's eye, egg in a basket, and in some households the confusing toad in the hole, which elsewhere means sausages in batter. This version belongs to the era of the free flour-company cookbook, produced to promote branded, standardized flour to home bakers. Such books devote most of their space to breads and cakes, and dishes like this one — stale bread rescued with an egg and a spoonful of cream — reflect the household economy those books assumed rather than any restaurant tradition.