id="cnetReview" section="rvwBody" data-component="indepthReview"> Eggs are an unforgiving ingredient to master. There's a razor-thin line between preparing them raw or horribly overcooked. The $20 Dash Rapid Egg Cooker takes a lot of the risk out of handling this finicky item by automating the process as much as possible. It also lets you tackle particularly delicate preparation styles such as boiling, poaching and steaming.

An almost comically tiny appliance constructed almost entirely from plastic, the Rapid Egg Cooker measures just 6 inches tall by 5.5 inches wide with a depth of 5.5 inches. The toylike machine is round, pot-shaped and split into two main sections. The lower half of the gadget contains a 360-watt electrically powered heating plate and a simple power button. The top portion of the Egg Cooker is a clear-domed lid that resembles a miniature cloche service platter.

Enlarge ImageThis little machine steams eggs many different ways.

Tyler Lizenby/CNET Essentially, this device is a fancy countertop steamer. To use, first fill the product's included measuring cup accessory with water to match the type of egg you'd like. The cup has premarked fill lines for, "hard," "medium," and "soft" on one side and another labeled "omelette/poached" on the other.

Next, pour this water amount into the machine's metal warming plate and set the boiling tray (a plastic disc with six egg-sized holes) into its slot, which rests on top. Eggs for tu trung banh ngot boiling (a max of six) go into the tray in their shells bottom up. The cooker comes with two other trays, one for poaching and another making omelettes.

Pour water into the heating plate.

Tyler Lizenby/CNET The manual recommends to spray either tray with a bit of cooking oil too to avoid sticks and make cleanup easy. It also instructs to wash the appliance's parts by hand. Even so, I found that keeping the machine tidy was a cinch since the pieces are so small.

Not so rapid or automatic

Despite its name, the Dash Rapid Egg Cooker takes its sweet time to heat ingredients. Boiling two jumbo eggs with enough water for "medium" required almost 8 minutes. The results were disappointing with uncooked yolks and partially raw whites. Similarly, poaching two jumbo eggs and shooting for medium yielded undercooked eggs that took over 9 minutes to reach my plate.

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