I haven’t dyed Easter eggs since grade school. I remember Easter egg hunts with kids racing around like lunatics diving under bushes grabbing every egg they could get their hands on, while I was content to sit under a tree and watch. I suppose the fact that I loathe hard boiled eggs may have had something to do with it. I was more of a “plastic-egg-filled-with-candy” kind of kid.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about dyeing eggs and did some experimenting yesterday. I boiled a cup of water and added 2 teaspoons of vinegar to the water. (It’s a good idea to use vinegar because it helps the color adhere to the eggshells.) Then I poured the water into various containers – a Batman mug, ramekins, a shot glass – and added the food coloring.
One of the techniques I used was wrapping the eggs with rubber bands. You can use ordinary rubber bands, but I like the wide ones used to hold broccoli stalks together.
The thinner band slipped when I took it out of it’s original bath, but it added to the texture when the egg was slipped into the second round of dye.
Instead of food coloring, I used decorating pastes, they’re concentrated and the color is vivid.
This egg was dyed blue in a small ramekin, dried, then dipped in a shot glass of yellow dye. I think it looks like a landscape! The great Easter egg experiment was a lot of fun – egg salad anyone?