Curbly Video Podcast: Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs.
By Chrisjob
This Easter season, head to the produce aisle and dye your eggs with nature.
Materials
• Free-range eggs
• Alum powder (available at the supermarket in the spice aisle)
• White Vinegar
• Vegetables and spices, see step one
• Cooktop
• Saucepan
• Measuring spoons
• Wooden spoon and slotted spoon
• Vegetable oil, wax, electrical tape, leaves, stickers, etc (optional)
1). Choose which colors you’d like to dye your eggs.
• For blue, use red cabbage
• For red, try whole beets (not canned), cherries, or cranberries
• For light green, use spinach or fresh green herbs
• For tan, brew some strong coffee, tea, or a handful of cumin seeds
• For yellow, try turmeric (a spice) and yellow onion skins
• For olive green, use red onion skins (the color is produced by a reaction with the vinegar)
• For purple, grape juice or frozen blueberrie
2). For each color, fill a saucepan with at least three inches of water. Add in your vegetables or spices. It’ll take a lot…around two cups, packed.
3). Bring the water to a boil, and add two teaspoons of alum powder – UNLESS you’re using onion skins, as it creates a funky reaction.
4.) Boil for thirty minutes.
5). Remove the pan from heat and allow it to cool slightly. You don’t want to add the eggs to boiling water, because the shells will likely crack.
6). Return to heat, and stir in two tablespoons of white vinegar. Add the eggs, and bring the mixture back to a full boil. Reduce the heat slightly, and cook for 10-12 minutes. Take the pan off the heat, and let the eggs cool in the dye.
7). Remove the eggs from the dye. If you’re satisfied with the color, then allow them to dry. For deeper, richer colors, strain the liquid, and allow the egg to continue to soak for up to eight hours. (Any longer, and the vinegar will start to disintegrate the shell.) If you plan to eat the eggs, put them into the refrigerator.
Other ideas
8). To add this marbleized effect, stir in a few teaspoons of vegetable oil into the cooled, strained dye. The oil will stick to the shell in certain places, preventing the dye from continuing to color the shell in certain spots.
9). Try dripping wax on the shell, or color them with crayons. Dye as above, and then stick them in a 200° oven for 8-10 minutes to melt the wax.
10). For a relief technique, cover the shell with stickers, tape, stencils, leafs, flowers, etc before dying them. On this egg, I added shards of electrical (PVC) tape.
11). Lastly, if you want your eggs to sparkle, polish them with a bit of vegetable oil.
Happy Easter!
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easter eggs dye natural vegetables how-to video podcast the-fix-its curblyvideo
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floridamommykat
Thanks so much for this post!!! My son is allergic to food dyes, so the most we can do with easter eggs is put stickers on them! This is the greatest thing i've seen in a while! I only wish i had seen this a week ago.
suzyrenovator
Your creations are gorgeous! I love how each egg is unique. Would have to hard boil the eggs before dying them at my house. I have a four year old who would be trying to crack them all!
LenkArt
Good idea. I knew that onion skin could be used to dye an eggs. Thanks for advise, will use it this year.
catmum
I used to take leaves or flowers and hold them on the eggs using squares cut from pantyhose, or rubber bands. This makes really pretty resist designs on the eggs. There are websites for fiber dyeing that list other natural stuff that makes good colors on proteinate materials like egg shells. Even just tying the pantyhose in a knot makes a cool design!
GoClick
*continued from previous comment*
Everyone is free to make consumer choices on their own but people need fact check and neither assume one way or the other about the safety of man made or natural substances. Arsnic, cyanide and many other deadly substances are "all natural" and to be avoided and people need to be aware that many natural and herbal products are not regulated by the FDA or other agencies and can have considerable health implications.
It's also worth considering that the life expectancy of the average American has doubled in the last 100 years, so in general the modern diet and exposure isn't all that bad, I'll take todays' food & health over that of 1908 or even 1948 any day, even if I don't have all of the ingredients in my own home. After all; our progenitors did and look how short they lived? Cancer is the result of a life in general, you live your exposed to things that effect the replication of your DNA, natural or otherwise and eventually it catches up with you, if you live long enough your chances of getting it increase. So now because we don't all die from a raft of more preventable things (largely as a result of our modern diets) we're free to degrade at the genetic level and die of cancer, which like the weathering of a fence has a cause, but you don't worry about standing in the wind do you? (incidentally repeated "wind burn" can cause skin cancer)
As for the eggs themselves, they looks FANTASTIC, but I'd rather just boil the eggs and eat em, why risk losing one somewhere I've done it and it's a disaster! heh :)
GoClick
@Bruno
The health issues of Zinc Stearate and Silica are related to their direct and repeated inhalation of their powdered forms as they are both crystalline powders not ingestion. Are you expecting children to grind up the tablets and breath them in? They shouldn't do that with anything. Even if they would have to make a career habit of it. If it worries you keep them kiddies away from beaches where they might also be exposed to both of those common naturally occurring substances.
As for Red #3 (Erythrosine) the FDA position after multiple reviews is that the risk is "extremely small" (which is FDA speak for really really really really unlikely) and the carcinogenic effects (thyroid) shown in rats are the result of extreme prolonged exposure. This is likely due to small amounts of Erythrosine's inherent iodine content being released. Iodine in itself isn't a danger and without it you could develop a goider or more serious thyroid related health problems.
*continued in next comment*
DIY Maven
Great job!
bruno
Wow, awesome job, Chris. Very cool video. I hope there are more to come.
@GoClick: Silicone Dioxide, Zinc Stearate, Red #3, etc. I think the point is on showing off a cool, all-natural way of dying eggs, not on slandering the egg-dye industry.
GoClick
I don't think it's very fair of you to claim the commercial products are toxic, did you even check the ingredients on them? Many of them are vegitable based dyes with organic binders.
Not only is it of questionable ethics it could be considered slander of the industry; similar to when Oprah was sued by several beef producers (as the beef like the egg dyes is FDA approved.)
I'm not involved with the "easter egg dye industry" in any way but I think it's important that people remember that websites are governed by the same laws as the rest of the [free] press (with considerations for author, server and provider locations).
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