Old-Fashioned Egg Dying

Over the years I have managed to suppress my need for a Cadbury creme egg, but Easter still brings on undeniable cravings for egg salad and "robin eggs" (malt chocolate candies).  The candies were a staple in my Easter basket as a child and the eggs were a part of the day's festivities.

Unlike the eggs we hunted for at church or school (which were filled with candy or money), the eggs we hid around the yard at my house were filled with whites and yolks. This was acceptable because it meant two things: 1) we got to decorate them before the hunt, and 2) we got to make them into egg salad after the hunt. The Easter egg hunt was a compilation of tradition, art, food and party games. All things I love dearly. 

Normally my egg dying habits consist of food coloring from the store and watercolor resist techniques gleaned over the years. This year, while preparing to dye Easter eggs with the youth group at church, my husband sent me the following link: 

http://graciouslivingdaybyday.com/2010/04/03/coloring-easter-eggs-in-onion-peels/

Complete awe. I was so taken with the photo that I couldn't sit still long enough to read the entire text. With a lack of onion peels at home, I proceeded with the method using pickled beets and chopped basil to create the dyes - the two things I had on hand which seemed to have prominent coloring. A little bit of vinegar in the water was something my mom used to do for our dyes when I was a kid, so I was happy to see it paralleled in the woman's article. 

I used three eggs to conduct the experiment.  Two white eggs and one brown one.  Since our farm eggs come with a variety of base colors, I wasn't sure how well the natural dyes would work. From the yard I gathered wild green onions, some clover, a dandelion head and a small frond of leaves. Using cheesecloth or pantyhose to hold it tight, I pressed the natural items to the surface of the eggs and then dropped them in the pot of dye. 

From here I boiled them as I would normally cook a hard-boiled egg. Instead of draining them after the cooking time was up, I let them sit.  The color was there, but subtle, so we went out for dinner and a movie and returned to find them a much darker shade. After gently unwrapping them, we were impressed by the preciseness of the patterns left behind. The method was very effective on both white and brown eggs.

Turns out you don't have to press the leaves super tight. Just get it snug.

The dye has to dry before handling. You can see where it rubbed off. 

With three novice successes under our belt, we headed to church to lead youth group. Hunting for leaves and flowers around the church was a fun part of the process. While the eggs soaked, we led the lesson, and the day wrapped up by unwrapping the eggs. 

Our dyes included beets, black beans, and green tea.  We also tried the onion peel method from the link (we bought onions at the store making a point to load the bag with stray peels in the display area). Simply wrapping the eggs with onion peels and tying it up with cheesecloth produced the most fascinating designs and vibrant greens, reds, oranges and yellows. 

I am eager to try this again using what I have learned from the first two experiments. Using onion peels was so incredibly simple. Even without the fine motor skills required to secure cheesecloth, impressive results can be achieved by simpler means. Also, in the onion and garlic drying areas of farms that I've seen, there is no short supply of peels laying around. Needless to say, I will never go back to my old way of dying eggs.

I think a Roetzel Easter tradition has just been born.

Eggs dyed by the youth using onion peels, beet, tea and black beans.
These eggs were pre-cooked and only sat in the dye for an hour.