'Cloud Eggs' Are Drifting Your Way on Instagram

I’m all for eggs, and I’m not picky: I’ll take ‘em scrambled, over easy, sunny side up or as the foundation for an omelet. And no one can accuse me of not embracing a viral food trend. Yet while I feel as if I ought to toast (no breakfast pun intended) this new “cloud egg” Instagram craze and I hate to rain on anyone’s parade (vague cloud pun maybe a little intended), I’m sort of on the fence about this one (no pun there at all).
Does anyone else find the textures going on here a little confusing?
Still, as Grub Street, Vogue and others have pointed out, eggs are healthier than certain other foods widely shared on social media — the multicolor and the mythical among them. So maybe the yolk, I mean joke, is on those who doubt the genius of affordable protein in the form of cumulus and cirrus.
For those scrambling to know how to make eggs in clouds, a recipe posted on Framed Cooks back in August 2014 lays it all out. Basically, you separate the egg yolks and whites, whip the whites a la meringue, and then shape them into the form of clouds on a lined baking sheet, leaving a yolk-sized hollow in the center of each cloud. Bake the egg white clouds at 450 degrees for about 3 minutes, add the yolks to the center (careful to avoid breakage), and then bake for 3 more minutes. Voila! Egg-cellent Instragram material.
Some people add cheese. Others add herbs or chives or whatever else they like in their eggs.
Or for a sweet take on the same idea, try Food Network Kitchen’s Pavlova Eggs with Lemon Curd. Lemon juice and zest and sugar? Actually, that does sound pretty celestial.
Photo courtesy of @kristifarinelli