food to glow

Breakfast doesn’t get more fun than cloud eggs. Whip your egg whites until fluffy, bake a little, reintroduce the yolk, bake a little more and, et voilà – cloud eggs. This Instagram favourite is one of the easiest and healthiest food trends of 2017. Just two ingredients and whatever you wish to fold in or tuck underneath (dal!). A perfect little ray of sunshine for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner. Get cracking!

Fluffy, baked, egg white with a pert, golden runny yolk is the easiest and least odd of this year’s food trends.

Rainbow bagels? No thank you.

Insects? No, ta.

Eggs as sunny clouds? Irresistible.

Although this trend has pretty much taken over Instagram in recent weeks, cloud eggs have been around at least since 2012. But I must admit to thinking it was a twee way of making eggs. Cracking and separating eggs, beating the whites until almost stiff, – á la meringues – pressing in a little dip, baking and adding the egg back in to bake a little bit more. Why faff with this when poaching, scrambling and frying are so straightforward? Well, why not actually? You won’t want to do it everyday, but if you have a spare 10 minutes of a morning, this is just the kind of breakfast to send you out of the door – or onto the laptop in your jammies :-) – with a smile on your face. And it is only around 160 calories a pop and super filling, as eggs always are.

I was instigated to give in to this trend after being contacted by BBC Radio Scotland (I am on their contributor list for food and nutrition topics) to see if I had made cloud eggs. At that moment I had not, but as I had eggs and some leftover dal I immediately dropped everything – in this case, a laundry basket – and started making what you see here.

And my goodness, it was so much fun to do! Basically you are making a barely cooked savoury meringue, dipping in a little well, popping the yolk back where it came from and baking just a smidge longer. You can add other small savoury bits to the whisked eggs before baking, like grated cheese, herbs, za’atar, (fake) bacon bits – whatever you might add to scrambled eggs.

Btw, I was too late getting back to my BBC contact to be interviewed, but I am so glad I opened his email as it spurred me to give cloud eggs a go. Note to self: don’t be so sniffy about Instagram trends.

Although The Metro is NOT impressed. But then, the flibbertigibbet writer didn’t know what devilled eggs were. Oh dear.

I’ve used mine to top some thick and buttery (leftover) dal for a luscious brunch bowl, but be as creative as you like. Why not pair it with sliced avocado and some oven-blistered vine tomatoes? Or on toast with baked beans and sauteed mushrooms for a fun take on an English breakfast?

So, are you going to brighten your morning with some sunny, naturally low calorie cloud eggs? Have you ever shunned an Instagram trend and then thought, oh why not?

If you like this recipe why not Pin it for later? And you can follow me on Pinterest too. 🙂