Woah Nellie! A 100-year-old ‘Baked Eggs with Cheese’ recipe redeems itself

by Mary Jo David

Last month this writer experienced a bit of a Pinterest fail while revisiting a century-old recipe from Nellie Maxwell’s syndicated column from 1922. But it’s a new month, and I daresay that this new-old recipe could put to shame any fast-food breakfast item of today.

That’s not to say Nellie’s recipe for Baked Eggs with Cheese was fast—or even easy to follow—but with imagination and baking experience, I was up for the challenge.

I started out a skeptic with this month’s recipe. Nellie touted this as one of a list of “Dishes for luncheon that are not too filling.” Career women and busy stay-at-home moms today are probably less inclined to host ladies’ luncheons than some of the women back in 1922. And those who do so nowadays are likely not going to serve glorified eggs on toast. But after making Nellie’s Baked Eggs with Cheese, I admit they might be a nice addition to a breakfast or brunch menu.

To a longtime technical writer, a well-written recipe can be a thing of beauty. By comparison, I’m sorry to say, this recipe by Nellie is rough and incomplete. It contains no ingredient amounts and doesn’t say how many the recipe serves. Add to that, the confusing instructions and no suggestions for baking temperature or time, and the recipe’s shortcomings almost caused me to pass it over for something else.

Take the first instruction: “Make toast of rounds of bread which have been cut nearly through with a smaller cutter and the center thus made hollowed out.” What does that mean? Is the bread to be cut round before toasting? And to my way of thinking, if you cut a circle “nearly through,” the center isn’t really hollow. But I had a vision, so I went to work using Nellie’s recipe as a steppingstone.

Beginning with four pieces of regular white bread, I used a large-bottom glass to press the center of each piece of bread very flat. I then toasted the bread. Meanwhile, I mixed grated cheese with cream—but what kind and how much? I ended up finely grating about 4 ounces of cheddar cheese—1 ounce for each piece of toast—and stirred the cheese into 1 cup of heavy cream. By the time the toast was done, it was interesting to see how the cheese/cream mixture had melded together into a spreadable consistency for the toast.

After spreading each piece of toast with the cheesy cream, I dug a well into the middle of each piece, through the cheesy cream mixture. Into each well, I cracked one egg. At this point in Nellie’s version, she had the reader move the toast to a platter that you are then going to place over a water-filled drip pan. Luckily I read ahead and decided 1) I’m certainly not going to put one of my good platters in the oven, 2) I could instead use a two-part broiler pan with water in the bottom pan, and 3) it makes a lot more sense to assemble each toast directly on the top broiler pan rather than assembling them elsewhere and trying to move them onto the pan after spreading each slice with cheesy cream and a raw egg!

Once assembled, I seasoned each cheesy egg toast with fresh pepper and a pinch of salt, garlic powder, and onion powder, then dotted each with a tiny bit of butter. I baked the toasts in a 350-degree oven for 23 minutes. When I took them out, they looked quite golden and lovely. But I soon discovered the water in the bottom pan had left the toast bottoms damp, not crispy. So, I moved the toasts to a regular baking pan and put them back in the oven for 5 more minutes.

Not being an egg fan, I was still impressed with the finished toasts. The eggs had set nicely, and each serving was very cheesy, crisp, and pretty darn delicious. I can only imagine how much better they tasted back in the days of homemade bread and fresh eggs and cream.

For breakfast or brunch, I think you’ll agree, even Mayor McCheese would be pleased to serve Nellie’s Baked Eggs with Cheese in 2022!