Bacon Gruyère Egg Bites

A Recipe for Those Hung(a)ry to Take Their Country Back

Sometimes you make a recipe that’s meant to be a copy of something else. Just like forms of government.

Democracies, at their best, borrow ideas that expand who gets a seat at the table. Authoritarians borrow ideas that shrink the guest list while convincing the people left out that they weren’t invited for their own good.

Full recipe below.

For anyone paying attention to American politics over the last several years, Hungary under Viktor Orbán has been something of a case study, and not a cautionary one to everyone. To some, it was a model.

Orbán took power in 2010 and spent the next 16 years methodically dismantling the architecture of Hungarian democracy. He used his supermajority to consolidate power, weaken the independence of the country’s courts, change the election system, and restrict the rights of minorities. By the time it was done, approximately 80 percent of Hungary’s media was controlled by his Fidesz party. He called this project “illiberal democracy,” a term he embraced rather than rejected, and he marketed it to the world as a viable alternative to the messy, slow, contentious work of self-governance.

The American right was paying attention. Orbán’s Danube Institute was a partner with The Heritage Foundation in drafting Project 2025, and analysts noted that the Trump administration’s opening moves closely mirrored what Orbán had done when he came to power in 2010.

The playbook is not complicated. You stack the courts. You rewrite the rules. You control the narrative. You get everyone else fighting each other over culture and identity while the people at the top consolidate wealth and power. You call it freedom.

Then, on April 12, 2026, the Hungarian people showed up to the polls in numbers nobody had seen in decades.

With 97 percent of precincts counted, Péter Magyar’s center-right Tisza party secured 138 seats in the 199-seat parliament on 53.6 percent of the vote, while Orbán’s Fidesz took just 55 seats with 37.8 percent. Election officials estimated turnout at a record 79 percent or more, in an election that many Hungarians saw as a watershed moment for their country.

Magyar, a conservative who was previously part of Orbán’s party before splitting off in 2024, had pledged to implement anti-corruption reforms if elected. He ran a broad coalition campaign, going out to every single village in person to persuade Orbán’s base that Orbán was not acting in their interests, building a big tent where people who voted for him probably agreed on very little else except that Orbán had to go and that democratic institutions had to be rebuilt.

It worked.

In his victory speech to tens of thousands of supporters gathered along the Danube River in Budapest, Magyar said: “Tonight, truth prevailed over lies. Today, we won because Hungarians didn’t ask what their homeland could do for them; they asked what they could do for their homeland.”

The lesson isn’t that democracy is self-correcting. It isn’t. For the past sixteen years, Orbán had systematically eroded democracy by stacking courts with loyalists, erasing key political rights, and limiting the power of the legislature. The lesson is that democracy responds when people work for it, organize for it, and show up for it in numbers too large to ignore.

Democracy endures when the people make a stand, which they always seem to do once they remember that self-governance isn’t a spectator sport.

As for me, I used to go to Starbucks for these Bacon Gruyère Egg Bites. But I’m married to a Brazilian, so it’s not good for my health to have anyone else drawing hearts on my coffee cup.

The good news is that this recipe is simple. Starbucks uses a sous vide method to produce that delicate, custardy texture, but you can replicate it at home with a little cornstarch and a hot water bath in the oven. The result is rich, savory, and deeply satisfying.

Kind of like watching authoritarians lose an election they spent years rigging in their favor.

And hoping the lesson is not lost.

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Bacon Gruyère Egg Bites

Makes 12 egg bites (6 servings)

Ingredients

• 4 slices cooked bacon

• 8 eggs, whisked

• 1 cup cottage cheese

• 3/4 cup Gruyère cheese, shredded

• 1/4 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

• 1 tbsp cornstarch

• 1/4 cup chives, chopped (optional)

• 1/4 tsp salt

Instructions

Preheat oven to 300°F.

Chop the bacon into crumbles and set aside.

Into a blender, add the cottage cheese, Gruyère, cheddar, cornstarch, and salt, and blend on high until smooth and creamy. Add the eggs and blend on low until just combined.

Lightly grease the cups of a standard muffin tin with cooking spray (or butter or neutral oil) and set it on top of a 9x13 baking sheet. Pour the egg mixture to fill each cup about halfway. Sprinkle chives and bacon crumbles in your desired amounts into each cup.

Carefully place the baking sheet and muffin tin in the oven, then pour hot water into the baking sheet until it reaches the bottom of the muffin cups. This water bath helps the egg bites achieve their silky texture.

Bake for 30 minutes, until the bites are just set. Remove the muffin tin first, then carefully lift out the baking sheet with the water. Let the egg bites cool before removing them from the tin.

Notes

Serving size is 2 egg bites.

Store leftovers in the fridge for up to 5 days, or freeze for up to 2 months.

Reheat in the microwave for 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Try different mix-ins like cooked spinach, feta cheese, or diced veggies.