I love buying “As Seen On TV” products and trying them out at home. Sometimes, I’m pleasantly surprised at how well the product delivers on its promises.
This was not one of those times.
I love Deviled Eggs and egg salad, and my kids like hard-boiled eggs as a snack. Lately, I’ve been buying the Eggland’s Best Hard-Boiled Eggs, which come already cooked to perfection and ready to eat. Still, wouldn’t it be great to achieve that kind of perfection at a fraction of the cost, along with the satisfaction of making them myself?
Enter “Eggies“, plastic containers that are supposed to allow you to make hard-boiled eggs without the shells, so you can skip the messy peeling process altogether. No more cracked shells, no more burnt fingers! Sounds too good to be true!!
Yeah. Hold that thought.
Here’s the “official” photo of the product, and what the finished product is supposed to look like:
Oh, how delectable these egg appetizers look! So perfect, and with no peeling!
I bought the Eggies system for only $9.99 at the Bed, Bath & Beyond store. I had a coupon for 20% off, so the actual cost was closer to $8. What a bargain, right?
Wrong.
I followed the directions exactly. In the commercial, they make it look super-simple, just crack the raw eggs into the eggie containers and drop them into boiling water. Nope–first you need to grease the inside of each and every Eggie with oil nonstick cooking spray, which is a time-consuming task. There were TWO sets of written instruction specifically warning you not to skip this step. Unfortunately, you can’t just spray the cooking oil into the Eggies. According to the directions, “you must coat the insides of top and bottom pieces with cooking oil before each use. If using cooking spray, spray a paper towel and wipe the inside of each piece, do not spray directly into the Eggies.”
The Eggie is actually comprised of four separate pieces: a Lid, Collar, Bottom Half and Top Half. After you’ve carefully greased the top and bottom pieces, you put them together and secure them with the collar. Then you crack the egg into the Eggie, screw the lid on, and place it into a pan of warm water. The instructions say, “Ensure that they are floating.” They were.
Then you bring the water to a boil and cook them according to the chart enclosed (varies based on size of egg and level of doneness you want. It’s 15 min for a large hard-boiled egg).
Poor little Eggies. They emerged as “half eggs”, looking more like Coneheads from the old Saturday Night Live skit than the perfect ovals shown on the box. Some were difficult to remove from the Eggie container (the instructions say to use a utensil to loosen the egg around the edges if they are not releasing). They were all rubbery, oddly-shaped, and inconsistent in terms of doneness. 