Homemade toaster scrambles (breakfast pies)

September 9, 2011 at 7:15 am | Posted in Food | 9 Comments
Tags: bacon and egg pies, freezer breakfast, homemade toaster scrambles, OAMC

Toaster scrambles were on sale a few weeks ago, so I picked up a few packs for my husband.  He leaves for work at 6:00am, and normally has cereal for breakfast.  (I do pack a lunch for him, but most of it is prepared the night before – I am just not awake enough that early to cook something edible.) Anyways, he loved having a warm breakfast, so I made some from scratch.  They turned out great and weren’t that difficult to make.  I made 19 in an hour and a half, and my husband said they are more filling than the store bought ones so he only needs one a day.  That’s close to 4 weeks of breakfasts! (Please excuse my poorly lit photos)

You will need:

• 13 eggs (set 1 aside)
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 12oz bacon or sausage
• 1 cup shredded cheese
• 4 cups flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 cup shortening or butter*
• 1 1/2 cup milk

First cook the bacon, and then drain and dice it.  You want little pieces that are easy to eat in a bite.  Set aside.  (In case you are curious, one 12oz package of bacon yields 2 cups of diced bacon.)

Crack your eggs.   Stir the sour cream into the eggs before cooking – its ok if it doesn’t all quite stir in at first, it will blend in before the eggs finish cooking.  (When I was looking for an oven baked egg recipe a few years ago, I discovered that adding a little bit of sour cream to your eggs before scrambling keeps them soft and fluffy.)

Add the bacon when the eggs are about halfway done.  Pull the mixture from the stove while it is still a little underdone and transfer into a bowl.  If you leave the eggs in the warm skillet they will continue to cook – we want them a little soft since they will finish cooking inside of the pastries.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour and baking powder. Cut in the shortening.  Stir in the milk to make a nice pie dough.  Knead for a minute or two, and then divide into 8 portions.  Depending on your counter space, you can either divide each portion of dough in half and roll it out large enough to make 5 pastries at once, or you can divide each portion of dough into 5 pieces to make the pastries one at a time.  I have a small counter, so it was easier for me to do them one at a time.  You want to roll the dough as thin as possible (under 1/8″ thick.)

If you are making several at once, roll out a 6″ x 27″ long piece of dough and set aside, then roll out a second long piece of dough.  If you are making them one at a time, roll out one 6″x8″ piece of dough.  Spoon the egg mixture onto the dough in 3″x4″ portion sized squares.  Sprinkle with cheese if desired.  (I only used 8 eggs, so I ran out of filling.  Rather than making more, I filled a few with just bacon and cheese, and I filled a few with homemade strawberry preserves.  The preserves leaked a little, but the bacon and cheese did great.)

Top with the reserved long dough piece (or fold the single portion of dough in half to cover,) and use a fork to seal the edges together.  Use a pizza cutter to trim each pie out.  Lightly prick each pie a few times with a fork.  (A few of my pies looked quite awful – they still taste good no matter how ugly they are.)

Beat 1 egg with 1/4 cup of water.  Brush each pie lightly with the egg wash mixture.  Bake at 350*F for 20 minutes until lightly golden.

Allow pies to cool completely, and store in a ziplock bag in the freezer.

I haven’t had any trouble with them sticking together, or with any odd flavors from being in the freezer.  I do keep things like onion and bell peppers wrapped in foil so my freezer doesn’t have any smell – the pie crust has a high fat content and will easily absorb odors so you may want to double bag the pastries.

To serve, place 1-2 pastries in your toaster oven and cook for one cycle.  We don’t have a regular style toaster, so I don’t know how these would work in there – you could always microwave them instead.

Enjoy your convenient, filling breakfast!

I tried to figure out how much it cost me to make these, as compared to buying them.  In Sept 2011 at full price it would have cost $12 to buy three packs of toaster scrambles.  A dozen eggs run around $2, bacon $3, and I figure $2 for the portions of other ingredients.  So I am saving 41% by making these myself.   At sale price it cost $5.50 to buy the scrambles and $2.50 for the ingredients – still a 45% savings to make it yourself.  And I am only spending about 5 minutes on each pastry (which I would much rather do ahead of time since it would take me longer than that to make a warm breakfast in the morning.)

*a note about the butter:  Shortening yields a nice, flaky pie crust.  I can’t eat shortening, so I substitute softened butter whenever I make a pie dough that I will be eating (I used shortening here since these weren’t for me.)  Butter has a higher water content than shortening, so the crust won’t be as nice and flaky.  The dough may also need a little more flour.

Homemade Toaster Pastries

• Servings: 19
• Print

• 13 eggs (set 1 aside)
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 12oz bacon or sausage
• 1 cup shredded cheese
• 4 cups flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 cup shortening or butter*
• 1 1/2 cup milk

1. First cook the bacon, and then drain and dice it.  You want little pieces that are easy to eat in a bite.  Set aside.
2. Crack your eggs.   Stir the sour cream into the eggs before cooking – its ok if it doesn’t all quite stir in at first, it will blend in before the eggs finish cooking.
3. Add the bacon when the eggs are about halfway done.  Pull the mixture from the stove while it is still a little underdone and transfer into a bowl.  If you leave the eggs in the warm skillet they will continue to cook – we want them a little soft since they will finish cooking inside of the pastries.
4. In a large bowl, stir together the flour and baking powder. Cut in the shortening.  Stir in the milk to make a nice pie dough.  Knead for a minute or two, and then divide into 8 portions.  Depending on your counter space, you can either divide each portion of dough in half and roll it out large enough to make 5 pastries at once, or you can divide each portion of dough into 5 pieces to make the pastries one at a time.  I have a small counter, so it was easier for me to do them one at a time.  You want to roll the dough as thin as possible (under 1/8″ thick.)
5. If you are making several at once, roll out a 6″ x 27″ long piece of dough and set aside, then roll out a second long piece of dough.  If you are making them one at a time, roll out one 6″x8″ piece of dough.  Spoon the egg mixture onto the dough in 3″x4″ portion sized squares.  Sprinkle with cheese if desired.
6. Top with the reserved long dough piece (or fold the single portion of dough in half to cover,) and use a fork to seal the edges together.  Use a pizza cutter to trim each pie out.  Lightly prick each pie a few times with a fork.
7. Beat 1 egg with 1/4 cup of water.  Brush each pie lightly with the egg wash mixture.  Bake at 350*F for 20 minutes until lightly golden.
8. Allow pies to cool completely, and store in a ziplock bag in the freezer.
9. To serve, place 1-2 pastries in your toaster oven and cook for one cycle.  We don’t have a regular style toaster, so I don’t know how these would work in there – you could always microwave them instead.

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