Mum was never a morning person so the eggs were a bit hit and miss. Sometimes they were so runny that we'd wonder if they'd actually made it into the boiling water.
Other times, they were so hard we substituted them when we lost the cricket balls in the backyard.
With the best of intentions, mum would set the timer for four minutes but invariably she'd get talking to the milkman, or she'd have to go and choose a tie for dad, and the eggs would be hard. Or, she'd see the time, panic and literally douse the eggs in boiling water and serve.
My love for soft-boiled eggs has stayed with me throughout adulthood, and in fairness to mum, I've had my share of hit and miss eggs too. I've been out in the laundry looking for my daughter's errant sports shirt, or stuck on the phone with an early morning work call, and it's near disaster.
But... now there's a contraption that makes every single egg be cooked to perfection.
Meet Breville Egg Creations. This weird spaceship-looking device takes out the guess work. Jab a pinprick hole in the fat part of the egg with their special gadget, stick your egg on a holder, add the required amount of water (less for soft-boiled, more for hard-boiled, duh) and press go. Or start.
When the time is up, it emits this terrifying buzzing noise that makes my neighbours call 000. Once I was up in the field behind us jogging and I heard the buzzer. Alan says he was at the IGA getting milk and he heard it. It's loud.
What I then do, which isn't in their instructions, is plunge the eggs into a bowl of iced water as soon as they're done, to instantly stop the cooking process. I act all super organised and get this ready early on. I leave them in that water for 2-3 minutes then peel immediately if I'm replicating a "poached egg" or knock the top off and stick them in an egg cup if I'm doing childhood soldiers.
It's never failed me yet and I think they should be mandatory issue when you get your birth certificate. Mine cost $40 from The Good Guys. The Breville Egg Creations I mean, not my birth certificate.
I'm not trying to egg you on, but seriously give it a try.
