Eggs à la bourgeoise (an easy egg/bread/cheese bake)

This is one of the first recipes we tried from From the Hearth, and it’s keeper! Eggs, gruyère cheese, bread, butter … yum! Plus, it’s really quick and easy (unlike some dishes we’ve tried from the 18th century).

It’s so easy, this bougie egg recipe would be great for kids to take on making for dinner.

Although the original recipe suggests this serves 6-8, if you are using it as a main dish it really serves 3-4.

Ingredients

5-6 thin slices of bread, crusts removed
6 thin slices of gruyère cheese
8-10 eggs
1 tbsp butter
pinch nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Preheat oven to 300F. 

Spread butter on a baking dish (we used a 9x9 inch pan) or pie plate. 

Place bread slices to cover bottom. (Recipe suggests rolling flat with rolling pin - didn't do that). 

Cover bread with slices of gruyère cheese.

Break eggs over the cheese. Sprinkle eggs with salt, pepper, and nutmeg. 

Bake at 300F for 25-30 minutes, or until cheese melts and eggs are cooked to desired firmness. 

This recipe was really fast to put together. I got it in the oven in under 10 minutes, and that included cutting the bread and the cheese.

I used the full 10 eggs in this dish – that really gave me coverage of all the bread and cheese.

I found that I could tell when the eggs were cooked pretty easily, but I could tell nothing about the level of meltiness of the cheese, so that instruction wasn’t so useful.

The first time I made this was for a quick weeknight dinner, so we were already eating by the time I thought to take a photo – sorry! Will update the images when I make this again.

We used a nice French loaf (white bread) for our bread base in this dish, but I think multigrain or whole wheat would also be nice.

Gruyère is one of my favourite cheeses, so we have it on hand fairly often. If you wanted to substitute something else, I’d suggest a fairly strong-flavoured meltable cheese like Emmental or similar. I’m not a big cheddar fan, but I think a good cheddar could work too.

The Verdict

Eggs à la bourgeoise is a winner! Fast and easy, and way more tasty than “fast and easy” usually gets you.

Try this one, and let us know how it goes for you in the comments!