Breakfast cups

Brunch is my favorite meal for entertaining. Even though I don't generally like breakfast foods, I do love breakfast pastries and a brunch (almost) makes it acceptable to eat 3 or 4 of them in one day. I occasionally get stuck in a rut with which foods to serve. You can only make mini quiches or large bowls of scrambled eggs before the crowd gets restless looking for something with a "wow!" factor, something new and different.

Lately on tastespotting there have been tons of posts with adorable mini breakfast cups. These are muffin tins filled with an entire bite sized breakfast. For Easter I decided to test them out. There were 6 adults and 2 kids eating. Just too many for custom egg dishes and the perfect amount to actually do taste testing with.

Then came the hard part, deciding what in the world to put in these cups. I had seen it all, from what could basically be described as an omlette to simply a single egg on toast. I know that Jimmy Dean Maple Sausage is a favorite among the men I was cookng for, and that bacon is the favorite of the younger crowd, so I did half and half.


Recipe (serves 6)
Ingredients:
1 package Jimmy Dean Maple Sausage
1 lb thick cut bacon (I used applewood smoked)
Shredded cheddar cheese
Butter
12 slices of bread (I used potato whole wheat)
12 large eggs

Method:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Cook bacon in a sautee pan. Once bacon is finished cooking, set aside and pour out extra fat and return the pan to the heat. Add in 1/4 of the package of sausage and cook (crumbling) sausage until cooked through, set aside. Form the rest of the sausage into patties and cook thoroughly.
Roll out bread with a rolling pin, making it thin and slightly longer. Remove the crust. Butter both sides of all 12 peices of bread thoroughly. Smoosh the bread into a muffin pan, making a cup out of the bread.
Crumble 4-5 peices of bacon and place a few peices into 6 of the bread cups. Fill remaining 6 cups with the cooked sausage. Top all 12 cups with cheese.
Crack 1 egg into each of the cups, gently shake the pan to help the egg settle and fill the cups completely. Top with salt and pepper.
Cook until the egg has reached the consistency of your liking. I cooked ours for approximately 11 minutes. 10 minutes will yeild very runny yolks and 15 minutes will yeild solid yolks.
Serve with remaining bacon and sausage as a side.