homework

naturally dyed easter eggs

April 7, 2012

I’m not sure what prompted me to attempt this, but I decided to try and naturally dye some Easter Eggs.

I didn’t grow up in a particularly religious household; however, we participated in the pomp and circumstance of the holidays in ridiculous fashion. I suppose not having children I am (on some subconscious level) trying to recreate the enchantment of the seasons.

I haven’t decorated Easter Eggs in a few years, so it was fun to revisit this ritual using a new technique.

I did some research online and found a few tips here and there… some things worked better than others. The basic premise is boiling down colorful foods, straining the liquid and adding a tablespoon of vinegar for each cup of liquid.

For my first attempt I tried red cabbage, spinach, turmeric and beets.

I cooked down the red cabbage (boiled in a sauce pan) and the water turned a vibrant light purple. So pretty! The spinach was a bit disappointing, I think next year I will experiment with algae or seaweed. [Side note: I’m always blown away by how one pound of spinach will cook down to a golf ball-sized lump of slime.] I used pre-steamed beets and the turmeric I simply added to water and stirred.

I used Ball canning jars for all of the colors.

The eggs I used (boiled of course) came from Allandale Farms and were white, off-white and brown in initial color. This gave me some cool and varied results.

The only suck-part of this process is that the dye takes forever to set in. I’ll have to do some more research to see if there is anything might speed up the process. I saw a few recipes that called for Alum.

 

I plopped in a few eggs and placed the jars in the fridge. The next morning was like Christmas, er… Easter morning. Using a large spoon I lifted the eggs out and couldn’t believe how deep in color the eggs were.

I set them on a drying rack and prepared myself to go to work. Luckily I took at least one photo, using Instagram, because otherwise I would have no proof of the awesomeness I achieved. In my haste getting ready I forgot to retire the eggs back to the fridge.

Someone had an interesting lunch. Let’s just say I am fully preparing for some colorful Easter poops in the backyard.

For some stupid fucking reason none of the other eggs turned out as colorful. I did get some nice mottled effects, but the following attempts definitely turned out earthier and resembled something you might actually find in nature. (Not necessarily a bad thing.)

I think this would be a really fun project if you have kids. My only complaint, aside from Cosmo stealing my eggs, is that my cutting board now looks like a Jackson Pollock.

 

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1 Comment

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    Reply Robere April 9, 2012 at 5:09 pm

    “we participated in the pomp and circumstance of the holidays in ridiculous fashion”

    Ouch !!

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