The affordable and popular Hamilton Beach 25500 does a fine job cooking seven eggs to the level of doneness we looked for in hard-boiled eggs. This helpful kitchen appliance can also make medium- and soft-cooked eggs, as well as up to three oval-shaped poached eggs. To read about other models we reviewed, don't miss our guide to the best egg cookers.
We got great results when we tried to get seven hard-boiled eggs – all seven had firm whites and yolks that were cooked completely through with no runny center. The taste and texture were great. We also did not end up with any cracked eggshells. If you need to cook bigger batches of eggs at one time, take a look at the Cuisinart CEC-10, which lets you make as many as ten at once.
We found it took 17.3 minutes to get hard-cooked eggs, although the soft-cooked or medium-cooked take less time, as does poaching up to three eggs in the oval-shaped poaching tray. Getting started was simple since we just measured the correct amount of water, positioned the eggs into their slots in an egg tray, and started the machine. The instructions for this egg cooker say that piercing the shell is optional, which is not the case with all name-brand egg cookers. Many maintain that piercing the eggshell helps reduce the number of cracked eggs during the cooking process.
With this Hamilton Beach model, you do get an egg piercing tool to use if you want to be doubly sure that there are no cracked eggs, which might be important for presentation if you're using perfectly shaped slices of hard-cooked eggs on top of a salad, for example.
However, we found that piercing or not piercing made no difference when we were conducting tests with this machine. One drawback we encountered was that the measurement lines on the plastic measuring cup are a little hard to read, even in good lighting, but it's doable and certainly not a deal-breaker.
Overall, cooking the eggs was a simple matter except for a bit of water dripping out from the machine in the area where one of the lid handles is located. This also would not be a deal breaker since there was only a tiny amount of water, but it did detract a bit from this egg cooker's overall performance.
An audible alert tells you when the eggs are done and ready to remove from the machine. You get an on/off switch, so you don't need to worry about reaching past a heated machine to unplug it to turn it off, which is a welcome safety feature. This egg cooker is also small enough to store easily since it measures just 7.4 inches wide and 5.75 inches high.
Cleaning the Hamilton Beach 25500 egg cooker takes only a little effort. You'll need to hand-wash the plastic parts, but that isn't much trouble, and you can use a cloth to wipe the water reservoir to clean it.
This device comes with a clearly written instruction manual, but it does not include recipes. However, you can find some classic egg recipes on the Hamilton Beach website if you're interested, including an Easy Blender Hollandaise Sauce recipe that takes only three steps to create. The Hamilton Beach website also provides a link to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Food Facts website, which offers excellent safety tips.
