Did you know you could make a colorful egg basket even more beautiful? I recently received a call from a frequent customer requesting two dozen eggs. This is not an unusual request. What was different, however, was the specific request for blues and whites only. Occasionally, we end up with a carton of light-colored eggs- blue, olive, tan, pink - because there are some people who simply don’t trust the idea that a chicken could lay anything other than a brown or white egg. We are not a huge farm. Although we collect 14-16 eggs per day, it would still take a few days to fulfill a request for two dozen blues and whites only. Then I realized what this was all about: Easter. She wanted to dye the eggs. Our kids have always been skeptical of boiled eggs, so we never dyed many. One kid would only eat the white; one would only eat the yolk. If we boiled too many, they would go to waste, and we’d have to feed them back to the chickens. Since then, they’ve learned to share their eggs, and they eat them on salads. This year, they were eager to dye their multi-colorful basket of eggs. Browns, blues, tans, and speckles. These eggs dye just the same as white. Here’s how you do it. Ingredients: food coloring vinegar boiling water You will need plastic bowls, cups or containers for each color you plan to use. Don’t bring out your best china. You want to use containers that are disposable or will not stain. To each container add ½ cup boiling water and a teaspoon of vinegar. You will then mix the food coloring to create the pigments you want to try. For egg dying you will need approximately 20 droplets of the desired color to achieve results. You can also mix any combination of colors to garner different shades. The chart below shows the standard colors, but you can create your own funky shades by experimenting with your own recipes. Keep in mind that the colors you produce will be affected by the amount of time the egg is left in the mixture. For lighter colors, try as low as 30 seconds to a minute. For darker hues you will want to leave the eggs in for at least 2 minutes. These kids insisted on bathing the eggs for 3 minutes or more. Their results were very dark eggs with silver and bronze tones. The natural egg color will also affect the outcome of the dyed result. We started with a few white eggs, blue, different shades of brown and one speckled egg. This metallic egg was created by leaving a white egg in the purple mixture that contained 10 additional red droplets (10 red + 15 blue) for approximately 7 minutes! This chocolate-looking egg was created by placing a brown egg into the rose mixture.
You can also drop the eggs into multiple solutions to create unexpected color variations or even two-toned eggs. Be creative and have fun!
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AuthorI'm a wife, mother, daughter, educator, writer and hobby farmer. Welcome to my world of simply living. Archives
December 2023
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