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How to Make Perfect Jammy Eggs

For a luxuriously spoonable consistency, steam the eggs—and stop cooking at 8 minutes.

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Boiled eggs top the list of simple culinary pleasures, and the jammy kind are the Goldilocks of the bunch. The gooey, spoonable consistency of their yolks falls midway between the gushiness of a soft-boiled egg and the velvety firmness of a hard-boiled one, which makes them both luxurious and incredibly flexible.

Why the Perfect Jammy Egg Can Be Hit or Miss

A jammy egg’s ideal contrast—a gooey yolk surrounded by a tender-firm white—demands precision. Undercook them, and you’ll end up with soft-boiled; overdo it, and they’ll solidify like hard-boiled. Cook time is a major factor here, but other variables can also throw off the results including the number of eggs and the volume of water in the pot.  

The problem: Most methods have you drop the eggs into boiling water. That means every time you add or subtract an egg, use a different amount of water, or even use a different pan, the timing is thrown off. That’s because all these variables affect how little—or how much—the water temperature drops from the ­boiling point of 212 degrees. Even a 1- or 2-degree drop significantly influences the cook time. 

Our experiment: We brought a quart of water to a boil in the same pan and varied the number of eggs we added to the pot. With one egg, the water temperature stayed steady at 212 degrees. With four eggs, it dropped to 210 degrees and took a full minute to recover. Six eggs caused the water temperature to plunge to 202 degrees, and it took 2 whole minutes to recover.

STEADY BOILING:  The water temperature (212 degrees) was unchanged by one egg.

NOT BOILING:  With four eggs, the water (210 degrees) took a full minute to return to a boil.

NOT BOILING:  With six eggs, the water (202 degrees) took 2 minutes to get back to 212 degrees.

Our solution: Just as we do for soft- and hard-boiled eggs, we steam our jammy eggs over ½ inch of boiling water. Steam reaches the same 212 degrees as boiling water, cooking the eggs exactly the same way as when they’re submerged. But because steaming involves so little liquid, the water returns to a boil within seconds, no matter how many eggs you add to the pot.

By steaming your eggs, you can cook one, two—even six—perfect jammy eggs every time. Of course, exactly how long you cook the eggs matters too. We’ve found that soft-boiled eggs should cook for 6½ minutes and hard-biled eggs for 13 minutes. But the sweet spot for jammy eggs turned out to be 8 minutes.

SOFT

6½ minutes

JAMMY
8 minutes

HARD
13 minutes

Jammy Eggs Recipe

  1. Bring ½ inch water to boil in medium saucepan over medium-high heat. 

  2. Using tongs, gently place up to 6 eggs in boiling water (eggs will not be submerged). 

  3. Cover and cook for 8 minutes.

  4. Transfer saucepan to sink and run cold water over eggs for 30 seconds to stop cooking.

How to Peel Jammy Eggs

Start by cracking the broad end of the egg against a hard surface and then peel away both the shell and the inner membrane. A quick rinse in warm water removes any remaining wisps of membrane and shards of eggshell. Split the egg in half, and it’s ready to go.

Uses for Jammy Eggs

Munching a jammy egg out of hand with a sprinkle of flake salt is delightful, but they’re also one of the nicest, most luxurious ways to add an egg to whatever you’re cooking. Here are a few of our favorite applications:       

How to Store Leftover Jammy Eggs

Jammy eggs can be refrigerated in their shells in their original egg carton for up to 3 days. To help distinguish cooked eggs from raw ones, you can mark the shell with a pen or marker. (And for food safety, be sure to refrigerate the cooked eggs within two hours of cooking; also don’t leave refrigerated cooked eggs out at room temperature for more than two hours.)

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