A 37-year-old Greater Manchester mother named Shafia Bashir found out the hard and painful way that poaching eggs in the microwave was a bad idea after being badly burnt on one side of her face.
The Bolton woman said she was in "absolute agony" after attempting to replicate the TikTok cooking "hack" last May 12 after her ex-mother-in-law taught her how to cook the eggs.
How the "eggs-plosion" happened
She poured some boiling water into a mug before adding the egg and put it in the microwave for a couple of minutes. Once she took out the egg and put a cold spoon to break it, the egg erupted "like a fountain," and its contents scolded the right side of her face. The mug where the egg was placed also broke.
Bashir initially applied tap water to her burnt skin for 20 minutes before going to the hospital for further treatment. She said the burns were still stinging 12 hours after the incident.
While she was already in the process of recovering, Bashir warned people to avoid attempting the trend.
"I just don't want anyone else going through that, because it is trending on TikTok," she said. "It was the most excruciating pain in my life."
Because of the incident, Bashir vowed never to eat an egg again. But she has also made light of her experience.
"For my last videos on TikTok, I did Beauty and the Beast and Tony Montana from Scarface, with the burn," she joked. "My followers thought it was a filter!"
BMJ: Never cook eggs in the microwave
Meanwhile, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) previously stated microwave ovens should display clear warnings about exploding eggs.
The BMJ said the egg's shell holds in the heat from the microwave and would continue cooking itself even after removing it from the microwave.
Yolks that are microwaved are 12.22 degrees Celsius hotter (22 F) than microwaved water. Pockets of scalding water in the yolk would not boil immediately because surface tension prevents bubbles from forming.
However, once the boiling process was disrupted by breaking the egg, the yolk suddenly boiled and released bubbles rapidly, causing an explosion.
Similar dangers apply when cooking sunny side up or poached eggs in the microwave.
The incident with Bashir was not the first time, as Farnworth woman Chantelle Conway and Manchester nurse Alice Seymour also suffered injuries in similar incidents in 2021.
