Donal's Oeufs Au Cocotte are easy like Sunday morning...

This summer we've had our fair share of house guests. I love having more people in the house because it forces me to be more regimented with breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now I have it all down to a fine art, from the types of meals I cook for them to the different outings we take them on. One of my favourite little tours is a food walk around Dublin, where we stop by some of my favourite spots to eat and shop. This week we visited The Cake Café on Camden Street in Dublin, it's a great little spot which serves up what I would call 'real' good food; there is definitely nothing pretentious about homemade beans on toast with a few sausages thrown in for good measure! I chose baked eggs, which came hot out of the oven, served with some chunky buttered soldiers for dipping into the yolk. Total heaven! After breakfast we took a stroll through George's St Arcade, past Fallon and Byrne and finished up doing a major storecupboard stock-up at the Asian market. For this week's recipe I couldn't think of anything better than this super little breakfast...

Oeufs Au Cocotte

This is a wonderfully simple little French dish which makes a perfect weekend brunch.

Serves 2
4 large free range eggs
6 tablespoons of cream
A generous knob of butter
Sea salt and ground black pepper
Toast and bacon to serve

Preheat the oven to 200˚C.
Butter 2 large ramekins and place in a highsided baking dish.
Pour half the cream into the bottom of the ramekins. Break 2 eggs in to each ramekin and pour over the remaining cream.
Add a small knob of butter to each ramekin and season with sea salt and ground black pepper.
Pour boiling water half way up the sides of the ramekins in the baking dish and place on the middle rack of the hot oven.
Bake for 10 minutes.
Serve with some buttered toast soldiers to dip with and some bacon just off the pan.