ETA:  My Photobucket account's bandwidth was exceeded.  Looks like the pictures should be available again on 9/19.  Sorry!

Knocked it out of the park with this one.  I made one for breakfast this morning for my wife.  Several hours later she's back from work and almost making me fear for my safety with her fervent and firm-footed demands for another one right the hell NOW.

So, obviously there's something good about this...

Don't have a name for it yet.  I'm leaning towards "Breakfast Bruschetta", but I'm confident there's actually a name for this kind of technique.

Also confident that this is not an original idea –– just one I happened to have independently of many, many others who came up with it on their own, too.

Anyway, enough talk.  Here's the photos and recipe:

Ingredients
- Pie crust pastry
- Creme Fraiche
- Roma Tomato
- Olive Oil
- Basil
- Goat Cheese
- Egg

Directions

First off, if you made the pie crust pastry yourself, bravo.  I will be doing this too in the future, but for the sake of simplicity as I was experimenting around, I just grabbed some 9" pie crusts from the grocery store, and cut them into quarter slices.

Flatten out the pie crust.  You don't want it too thin, because you don't want it to tear.  You don't want it too thick, so you have more room in the cup.  Basically, you want enough surface area to fill out the ramekin you'll be baking it in, with leftovers to fold over.  The pictures will explain as you read on...





Cut a slice of the Roma tomato, and coat it with basil and olive oil.  I would have preferred to use julienned basil leaves, but the fresh basil I had went bad, so I was forced with the flake stuff in the spice cabinet.  You're using a Roma tomato because a slice off a beefsteak tomato would be too large to fit in the cup.

Also, this is NOT the ramekin I used to bake it –– just another one I used to coat the tomato slice.



Use Pam or whatever non-stick cooking spray you have to coat the inside of the ramekin.



Here's the tricky part...  Getting the pastry filled into the ramekin.  Remember, you don't want the ramekin to be supporting a pastry pouch, you want the pastry to make contact with the ramekin on all sides.  The tricky part about this, is doing it in a way that doesn't tear the pastry.  If you do tear it, it's not the end of the world, but it might make for a small mess after it has baked (might; I haven't torn one to see what would happen).



Preheat the oven to 450F.  This probably should have been step one.  Oh well, I'm guessing you're not reading this for the first time while you're in the kitchen making it, are you?



Drop approximately 1 teaspoon of creme fraiche into the bottom.  Spread it around slightly, but don't obsess over an even coating.



Drop the Roma tomato slice on top of the creme fraiche.



Drop a slice of the goat cheese on top of the Roma tomato.

Now, I will throw in here that I'll be trying a new method with this in the future - one where the goat cheese is actually filled in around the tomato, against the pastry wall.  The whole point of this would be to provide a "wall" that would encourage the egg yolk to stay centered when you crack it in –– but I'm getting ahead of myself...



Crack in the egg.  Try to get the yolk centered, but if you can't pull it off, don't worry.



Fold the rest of the pastry over the top of the cup, starting with the piece(s) closest to the yolk if it is not centered.  If it is centered (yay!) start with the biggest piece so that it, hopefully, overlaps the yolk entirely and acts as a place-holder.  Yes, there is a reason for this.  Standby for it...



Into the center of the oven...



...for 12 minutes.

Now, I'll go ahead and add that I'm at about 6,200 feet in elevation, so your location may require more or less time.  Regardless of how much time it takes, keep an eye on it, and...



...once it has turned golden brown on the top, (or when the 12 minutes is up if you did that) remove it from the oven.



Plate and serve.









This picture doesn't show what I was hoping it would - also my Nikon battery died in the middle of shooting, so I had to take these with my BlackBerry - but the whole reason you're being careful about the yolk is so that, IDEALLY, when you cut into the pastry, the yolk will spill out like it would in a properly poached egg.  This is also what I'm hoping to achieve with the "goat cheese wall" in the future.  My wife's was cooked perfectly.  Mine - the yolk was too close to the side of the ramekin, so it was somewhat solid.



That picture also shows some creme fraiche and strawberry slices to garnish on the top (which I forgot when I was taking the above photos).

I am working on a bacon, scrambled egg, and cheese version of this.  Once I have that recipe nailed down, it too will be shared!

_MaH

OMG.

if she ever kicks you out, you can move in with me.






MAN, that looks good.  

You could have done better.

1. Replace Creme Fraiche with crumbled, fried breakfast sausage.
2. Replace tomato with 2 Eggs.
3. Replace your egg with crumbled, crispy fried bacon.
4. Replace goat cheese with american, cheddar cheese or even velvetta fake cheese, enough
   to hold eggs in place.  
5. After cooking, spoon sawmill, redeye, or some other gravy over your "Breakfast Pies" (not to be
   confused with your wife, as she'll be otherwise busy...see step #6).
6. Give recipe to wife and have her make her own breakfast while she cooks 2 of these for you.
7. Take nap while wife cleans kitchen.

Everyone wins!

Shred your cheese so you can level it out or even make a little depression and your egg will stay in the center.  It looks like you did a great job and I would think this is very customizable.

Looks great!



My wife says the same thing about my grilled cheese sandwiches, but those definitely don't look as good as this does.

When a delightfully lovely lady has offered up her home to you on the sole condition that you cook while you are there, Michelin stars and Zagat be damned, I've got it made!

_MaH

Ya Think?




let me tell you bout my 3 ex wives
CHEF
ETA
pics timing out my old dial up system..put what I saw looks GREAT'

want some
CHEF

Looks good.  I would pre-cook the egg.  I can't stand runny yolks.

I'm going to try and make one of these for my wife. She's going to ask "Where the F did you learn to make that???"



My reply? "ARFCOM", see it IS good for more than just guns and ammo.

My recommendation would be to use a properly poached egg when you do this.

Poach the egg so that, if you broke it open, the yolk would run.

CAREFULLY place the poached egg inside the pastry cup.  The heat from the oven will continue to cook the yolk, so it should be solid when you take it out.

You could also go the route of completely cooked scrambled eggs, or a hard-boiled egg, but I'd recommend the scrambled or poached approach.  Fried, sunny-side up...  I just don't see them going very well with a dish like this.  But I could definitely be wrong!

Likewise, you could cook the pastry cup for longer.  I don't know what 15 minutes would do to the pastry (I think it will be fine) but that should definitely bake the yolk into solidity in the cup.

PS: If you go the scrambled route, be sure they're scrambled first!  Only put scrambled eggs in the cup that you would put on a plate to eat.  In experimenting around with the Bacon/Egg/Cheese version of this, I decided to try raw bacon and whisked, raw egg, thinking it would cook inside the cup.  Not a chance.  Once I cut the pastry open it all came spilling out in about the same condition that it went in.  So I would say that you should definitely only put in this cup stuff that has already been cooked, with the exception of a raw egg, if you wanted to get that baked egg taste with a poached egg yolk (which you don't).

But to the other poster who said something like this looks extremely customizable, you're right.  It is!  And that's part of why I love it.  Other ideas I have to go along with this are:

- Bacon/Egg/Cheese
- Sausage/Egg/Cheese
- Ham/Egg/Cheese
- Spinach/Egg/White Cheddar Cheese
- Fruit/Creme Fraiche

And these can all be made the night before.

Wake up, turn on the oven, take a shower while it pre-heats.

Get out of shower, put cup into oven, get dressed while it cooks.

Finish getting ready, take cup out of oven, plate, serve, eat, head out the door.

Yes, this pastry cup idea is going to get a lot of play-time in the Hoffman household!

_MaH

Pie Crust

1/3rd cup vegetable shortening!?  WTF is that!?!?

Do it right or go home!



_MaH

That looks great!
I would make the egg, sausage, cheese version for myself. Maybe some sauted onions. Tomatos and spinach go in salads.
Call it Breakfast Pie!

Hmmmm...

I'm thinking mass production (Italian family).

1) Use a muffin tin
2) Cover with a sheet of phyllo dough (If you are at a family party and stand still too long you WILL be wrapped in phyllo, cooked, and served as an hors d'ouvres.)
3) Gently make the pockets
4) Filling
5) Wash top with a beaten egg
6) Cover with a flat sheet of phyllo
7) Use a ravioli cutter to press the dough and cut out the scrap around each depression.
8) Bake and serve.

Be careful with that muffin tin.  For starters, it will have different heat transferrance properties than a ramekin, so you'll have to play around with the temperature and duration.

Likewise, my original intention was to use a muffin tin, but I just found that the cups weren't large enough to hold the contents in the OP.  After the egg was cracked in, it sat a good 1/4 inch or so over the top - made it very difficult to fold over the pastry and not get a spill.

Just passing on to you my experiences so you can hopefully avoid them yourself as you put this into action.

_MaH

That's what I was thinking.



 

Well you know... as a starting point

Dangit Donne, you beat me to him.

Okay I get second dibs.  

LOL...  don't worry, honey...  if he moves in, you can, too.  

Now, now, ladies...  Beauty is a distraction, and it would be rather difficult to cook properly when I'm incapable of taking my eyes off you!

This is just another reason why I insist my wife just sits back and relaxes while I work the magic in the kitchen

_MaH

don't you worry...  we'll stay out of the kitchen while you make teh breakfast.  

THEN we can all hang out by the pool.  you know...  after we've eaten...  

AHAHAHAHA  .........I know your type.  

You, sir, are trouble on two feet.  

If any one is going to use that a couple things you might want to try.  First, measure out all your ingredients including all the fats (butter, shortening, lard whatever you use) out them all in individual containers, you can of course mix the dry things.  You can also cube the fats (again butter, lard, shortening) and put everything in the freezer for like an hour or so longer if you have time.  You also want to work with as many cold things as you can, keeping your ingredients cold is important.  Last you can make it a whole lot simpler by making it in a food processor just whatever you do don't mix it too much.  Just add the butter to the dry stuff chop it all up like the recipe says, add the water pulse it a little then stop.  You should not have dough when you are done just moist crumbles.





 

Just wait 30 minutes after eating before jumping in.  After that though, well, I was one of the top swimmers in Virginia around 10 years ago - water's a natural habitat for me



Bad guys have more fun - but they can still behave if they want to

_MaH

I assume "ramekin" means "white bowl".





Next time try a dollop of bacon grease on the top before it goes into the oven. Looks good the way it is though.

In fact, that is the verbatim translation from French!  Well done!

_MaH

I'm assembling ingredients to try this.  (Uxb loves runny eggs, and although I don't, if they're disguised with enough other glorious stuff, I can eat them.

Where'd you get your creme fraiche?

I live in a food-challenged area.

Did you make the substitute and whip it?  Or can you get it where you are?

kitties

I looked all over for it out here.  No luck.  Not even at "fancy" food places, like Whole Foods (I guess it's not organic enough for them).

So, I was forced to make it myself.

Here's the recipe:

Creme Fraiche

Ingredients
- 1 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream*
- 1 Tablespoon Cultured Buttermilk

* If you can avoid the "Ultra Pasteurized", do it.  I was forced to use "Ultra Pasteurized" whipping cream, and it still turned out all right, but the extra pasteurization makes the cream a bit runnier than the non-ultra counter-part.

Directions

1) Place a pot on the stove and bring it to a low heat.  Pour in the 1 cup heavy whipping cream.  You want to bring the cream up to about body temperature (roughly 100F).  In other words, you want warm (but not room temp) cream.  You definitely do not want to heat it up beyond that, so just stir and keep an eye on it.  You're just trying to remove the cold and bring it up to approximately body temperature.

2) Remove pot from stove, and pour cream into a bowl.  Use spatula, if necessary, to remove as much cream from the pot as possible.

3) Add 1 tablespoon of buttermilk into cream.  Stir to mix in.

4) Cover bowl with a towel.  Not a cover - we don't want it to be air tight.  Keep in a warm place.  Let sit overnight.

5) In the morning, the top part should be very creamy.  Underneath it, it might be more like the consistency it was last night, but if not, fantastic.  Stir it to an even consistency and enjoy.

Tips

- If the cream is not as thick as you would like the next morning, let it sit out a full 24 hours from when you added the buttermilk.

- Though it will be slowed down, the cream will continue to thicken in the refrigerator.  This is why you do not want to put it in the refrigerator right after mixing in the buttermilk.

- As the days pass, and the cream gets thicker, continue to stir it before each use.  The cream will begin to develop an almost "nutty" kind of flavor to it.

- If you have counter space above the dishwasher, run the dishwasher and keep the bowl there on top of it overnight.  The heat from the drying dishes will transfer out the top of the dishwasher, into the counter, and into the bowl.  It isn't necessary, and doesn't do too much to help, but it is definitely a neat trick to assure a warm environment overnight.

- The growth of the bacteria culture from the buttermilk, in the whipping cream, is what makes it thick.  This is a "good" bacteria for the human body, so don't shy away from it.  Likewise, this "good" bacteria will naturally fight off any "bad" bacteria that may try to spoil the cream.  The result is that the creme fraiche will keep for about 7-10 days from when you made it.

Bon appetit!

_MaH

Thanks!

This is pretty much the recipe I have, but your personal notes are helpful too.  

I used to use myoven light to let my bread dough rise, and I wonder if that wouldn't work to good effect for this as well....hmmm..

I'm stuck with ultra-pasteurized everything.  Got the whipping cream and the buttermilk earlier this afternoon.

Do you warm up your buttermilk before mixing at all?

kitties

I did not.  I do not think it would do any harm, so long as you don't overheat it and kill the bacteria.  Though I think you'd have to go rather far beyond body temperature to achieve that.

_MaH

The soup for creme fraiche is in the oven with the light on.

We shall see.......

Oven's not on, is it?  Just in there to prevent airborne contaminates from finding their way in?

_MaH

Only the light is on.  The light bulb, I'm hoping, will keep it barely warm.  It's in a bowl with a towel over it as you suggested.  

It's going to be in the low 50s here tonight ––first cool night we've had.  It won't get quite that cool in here, but probably down to 60 or high 50s by morning.   I think it needs to be a bit warmer than that for the bacteria to have a decent chance.  AND....we've had an infestation of fruit gnats for the past two weeks.  (I just fished one out of my glass of Sauvignon Blanc )  I couldn't figure out what was going on––no food out, but they were EVERYWHERE.  

Yesterday, I found the problem..  Last spring my mom brought a basket of seeds for my garden, along with.......drum roll please.......some seed potatoes.  I never got those planted, and they were in the bottom of the basket––underneath everything else––forgotten.   I kept scouring and emptying the fridge and taking out the trash and sorting through my garlic, onions and potatoes, trying to figure out what that smell was.  Now, I know.

So NOW...the gnats are  starving....and looking for anything they can find.   They're hovering near the cats. It's the oven, or it's fruit gnat fraiche tomorrow....


The oven light bulb used to make a perfect environment for my sourdough bread to rise.   We'll see if it works for this.

Oh, and ain't skeered of the airborne contaminants much..  But with two cats in the house, ya gotta hide exposed heavy cream.

Hey man, thanks for the recipe. My wife liked it, but she's not a big fan of goat cheese.

I'm working on a few variations. I tried one with bacon in it this morning, and my wife really liked it.

I made one for my brother, and he asked me if I was gay.

Sexual preference notwithstanding, did your brother like the Hoffman Breakfast Poof Pouffe, or not?

Edited to make it look French.

If she's not a fan of goat cheese, but you want to keep everything else the same, I have an outstanding substitution for you:

Boursin cheese.

It has a consistency like a fluffy cream cheese, and is available in numerous flavors.  Use according to your preference, but I'd recommend trying it with the Shallot & Chive mix.  It will add a very nice, very tangy, very savory kick to your dish.

As it's a soft cheese, I don't expect that it will burn inside the pastry, after all a lot of the heat is being absorbed by the ramekin and by the pastry, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's very creamy not too long after coming out of the oven.

_MaH

PS:  Tell your brother he can go back to his #5's with coffee at the drive thru if this was too "faggy" for him

OMFG YES!!!!

That would be just about orgasmic.  I have a couple of packages of Boursin in the fridge.  Maybe I'll try one with that tomorrow too.....

ETA:  It will cook just fine for this long.  I make a chicken breast roll with wilted spinach, pancetta and Boursin.  It holds up to the oven for longer than that inside the roll.  Granted that's more dense than the pastry, but it ought to do great.

Well, just tried, and gave the approval to, a Bacon/Egg/Cheese version of this dish.  I'll try to get the recipe up soon, but I'm heading out soon for a fun drive to Cripple Creek via Gold Camp Road.

For now, though, here's the basics:

1) Set pastry in cup just as in OP

2) Set oven to same temperature

3) Cook bacon on skillet over medium heat, until cooked, but still soft (flexible)

4) Cook scrambled eggs.  I'll get a recipe up for this later on that incorporates creme fraiche and come out absolutely amazing.

5) Line inside wall of pastry with cooked bacon

6) Drop one small spoonful of scrambled eggs into the bottom of the pastry

7) Drop cheese on top of eggs

8) Fill remainder of cup with scrambled eggs

9) Fold over, bake for 12 minutes, serve immediately.

Divine.

Bon Appetit!

_MaH

It's uxb's favorite meal that I make.  I don't make it too often, though it isn't hard to do, because I just don't think of it.  But the combo is heavenly.  I didn't create it.  It's from Food & Wine magazine––an older issue.  I will dig it out and IM it to you if you want it.

kitties

I usually get my goat cheese at the wine and cheese shop, but they have goat cheese logs at our wally world.  You have to look over by the deli––they have a case of specialty cheeses, fresh pasta sauces, pesto, etc, there.   (That's where you get mozzarella balls or pearls, hummus and the like, and I bet they're stocked in the same way at your wally world.) It's not the highest quality goat cheese I've had,  and wally world is the bottom of my list for any kind of stuff like this, but it's the closest and easiest to get to, so I use it sometimes.  It did the job just fine for this  recipe.  I grated mine straight out of the fridge so I could direct the egg yolk to the center and it worked .

Here is my first  effort:



Grated cheese did a pretty good job of centering the egg yolks.



Before baking



Out of the oven.  The two in the back (next to the rolling pin)  were baked for 12 minutes. (Uxb likes runny egg yolk)  As an experiment, the two in the front were left in an extra two minutes to see what would happen to the yolk.  




I think maybe I rolled my crust a bit too thin.  It did not rise at all on the bottom of the pastry.  So the bottom was sort of heavy and moist, rather than fluffy the way the OP's looked.  Top was delicious and crispy though.   It also may have been that I used too much creme fraiche, or too much goat cheese.  I probably used a little over an ounce of goat cheese per ramekin.




Here is the inside of the one baked an extra two minutes.  You can see that the yolk is barely solidified, which is how I like it.  






Thank you so much to mhoffman for posting this fantastic breakfast recipe!   I would not have tried anything like this without the pics, probably, so I appreciate your effort in doing that and in sharing this in such a user-friendly way.  Of all the meals I make, breakfast bores me most often.  This flavor combo was excellent.  I admit that I liked it better with the mango than with the strawberries, but the strawberries were prettier.

Thanks for the update! I'll try to find the boursin when I hit hannafords next week. And thanks for the creme fraiche recipe as well. I looked all over for that stuff!

And don't worry about my brother. He was a Marine, so you know he lacks culture.

What's the purple stuff, yogurt?

Whole thing looks delicious.

Blueberry yogurt.

Ingredients
- Yogurt
- Blueberries

Directions

1) With a blender, puree several blueberries.

2) Mix pureed blueberries with yogurt in a bowl.  Use a whisk if you're having trouble getting a nice consistency throughout.

3) Once the yogurt has reached the desired level of flavor/concentration, if you desire, mix in several fresh blueberries.

Fresh and homemade is always better.

_MaH

In that case, good.  I don't want any Marines eating this stuff because it will make them relax and savor life.  I want the Marines that defend me and my nation to be a band of blood-thirsty, pissed off, hate-the-world-and-everything-in-it-that-isn't-American trained killers.  

One does not become this by filling up on puffy breakfasts.

Good for him and all he does.  Hooah.

_MaH

I freaking LOVE breakfast.  Most important meal of the day, you can eat the stuff at any time of day and it won't seem odd (seriously, try a mushroom duxelle for breakfast –– it just doesn't work that way).  I can go to lengths about all the stuff I can, and have, done for breakfast.  Seriously, lunch is more of a "Eh, I need to shut my stomach up" meal, and dinner is often an "I'm not really that hungry".  Breakfast, though, I'll spend hours - if necessary - getting it properly done.

I'll try to pull some other stuff together if you're interested.  My breakfasts are very egg-centric (as they're cheap, very filling, and rich with protein) but absolutely not exclusive.

Glad they turned out how you were hoping!  Seeing someone replicate a recipe of mine is beyond flattering!

_MaH

ETA:  PS –– the two causes that come to mind of the bottoms of yours being somewhat moist and not as fluffy could be one of two (if not both) reasons:

1) Too much grease in the ramekins.  If there's too much nonstick spray used, it will pool up at the bottom, and will be absorbed by the pastry.  This will prevent it from getting that "fluffiness" you're seeking

2) Your creme fraiche looks exactly like mine did the morning after I set it out to thicken.  It still looks a little runny.  A runny creme fraiche is not as cohesive as a thicker one, so it will be more attracted to absorption by the pastry than to cohering together during baking.  There's two reasons for this.  The first is that you left it out.  It was necessary to start making it, but a colder creme fraiche is a thicker creme fraiche.  Secondly, it looks like it's going to need more time to thicken.  In other words, your creme fraiche turned out just like mine.  Try it tomorrow morning, and it will be pretty much exactly where you want it.

The pictures you posted were from your first attempt.  The ones I posted, weren't.  Trust me when I say that your first attempt at them looks not only substantially better than mine, but looks almost exactly like the one I posted.  This is exceptional work you've done!  Bravo!