The main thing preventing you from eating Soft boiled eggs in egg cups with tiny spoons and salt and mustard every morning.
For soft-boiled eggs that come out perfect every time, also tiny spoons and egg cups with room for a dollop of mustard. (I think more people would have this snack/treat if they solved the egg cooking difficulty).
Note: I haven't actually used this particular toaster+egg cooker modelv, but I had its predecessor (maybe get a warranty from square or something since there may be reliability issues?). One major benefit over a dedicated egg cooker is just that so many of them have a loud buzzer that you can't disable (though ATK actually counts that as an important feature 🤷♀️).
But I'm also convinced that toaster ovens are preferable to toasters for most people (though apparently few excel at toast in particular??), so if you pick out an egg cooker that you like, let me know and I'll add it here.
Also: I've heard that the Instant Pot does a good job with eggs (but it seems unwieldy for making a couple soft-boiled eggs for breakfast).
In 2019, America’s Test Kitchen declared this Cuisinart to be the best egg cooker (alongside the cheaper EGC-007 which has been modified over the years and seems to now also have an alert), but they still think cooking them the conventional way is worth the extra few minutes and attention, especially for anything other than hard-boiled.
In 2024, Consumer Reports picked this Hamilton Beach model as their top pick.
My read is that egg cookers require a bit of trial and error to dial in the right amount of water for the number and size of eggs you generally cook, but that once you do, you’ll be glad for this little tool.
The Perfect Health Diet folks want us eating a couple eggs a day. I like them with Congee (and related Chinese medicine/energetics) and I like them with Fermented Kimchi: easy, healthy, delicious fried rice (or just scrambled with kimchi on the side), but soft boiled in egg cups with mustard is such a treat. This device might be the gateway to perfectly cooked eggs on demand…
