I’m a little embarrassed that it’s taken me this long to perfect the hard boiled egg. There’s the expression “she can’t even boil an egg”- but I promise you that before today, I have been able to boil an egg- just not a perfect one.

Before today, I tried everything. I added vinegar to the water to prevent the whites from oozing out of the cracks in the shells (and I always, always seemed to have cracked shells!) I added salt to the water to make it easier to peel them. I tried keeping the water on a low simmer before lowering the eggs in. And it was always a hit and miss- some eggs were better than others, some almost perfect… but I never had a day when all the eggs were perfectly hard-boiled, and easy to peel. Until today.

So here’s what I did: I placed the eggs in an unheated saucepan, covered them with cold water, put the saucepan on the stove and turned the heat on to medium-high. Then I waited.

As soon as it started boiling (and I’m talking a good, rolling boil here), I switched the heat off, set my kitchen timer to ten minutes, and went to check Facebook.

After ten minutes, I drained the eggs from the water, and dumped about two cups of ice on them. This gave them a good shock. After they were all nice and shocked and quite cool, I peeled them. When you peel them this way, they are perfect. The peel, membrane and all, comes right off- and you are left with perfectly boiled, shiny egg, with a very moist, creamy yolk within. You’re welcome.