Eggs-in-a-blanket

This recipe was one of my brother's absolute favorites growing up.  He'd keep our poor mother over the skillet begging, "please... just one more..."

While it's nothing profound, I got a particular hankerin' for it the other day, and so figured I might as well share it here.  While my head is swimming with potential variations (what if I used country bread, prosciutto, and gruyere?) I decided to keep it simple and make it just the way my mom did.  But you could easily experiment for a more gourmet rendering.

Ingredients:

Eggs
Bread (I used white, but you could use any, really)
Butter
Cheese (optional)
Ham (optional)

(1) Using a cookie cutter or just a drinking glass, carefully cut a hole in the middle of a slice of bread.

(2) In a skillet, melt a teaspoon of butter on low heat, turning so that it covers the entire surface.

(3) Place the bread in the skillet, and allow it to toast for a few moments.  Then, crack a whole egg into the hole.  Add pepper to your liking.

(4) Once the egg has begun to set, very carefully flip the toast using a spatula.  Allow to cook a minute longer.  You can continue flipping until your desired doneness, but you risk breaking the yolk... so be careful.  At this point, you can add a slice of ham or cheese (but don't flip once you've added it!)

(5) I prefer a soft yolk, so that I can use the circle I cut out to soak up the egg.  You can toast the circle in  the skillet or in a toaster oven.

(6) If you don't need to the extra toast for your egg, you can always top it with some jelly or jam (I used raspberry and blueberry preserves).

(7) Simply add another pat of butter for each new egg-in-a-blanket, and repeat.