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Easter is a fun time with a lot of traditions. One of our favorite traditions is dyeing eggs. Normally, we go to the store and get packets of dye to drop in vinegar and add eggs to. It makes it easy when we don't have a lot of time on our hands.
But, it seems that a lot of us have much more time right now with our little ones. So we thought it would be fun to try something new! For thousands of years people have been dyeing cloth, paints, paper and all sorts of things with natural dyes. As your local spice shop we have numerous things that are used to make your food delicious, but some can also be used to dye things as well!
The process is similar for all of these items and you can have fun making the colors as bold as you want!
Here are a few of the products that are perfect to try for your all-natural egg dyeing:
Turmeric - Tan, Yellow all the way to Orange
Hibiscus Flowers - Purple and Burgundy
Butterfly Pea Flowers - Blue, Pink, Purple to Grey
Annatto Seed - Red or Tan
Beet Root Powder - Purple
Tea - Various teas will get different colors, most in the tan color range.
You can also use other items like onion skins, purple cabbage, fruit juices and more!
What you need to do:
1. Add a little more water than what you would need for dyeing to a sauce pan. Roughly 2-3 cups.
2. Add coloring ingredients (roughly 2-3 Tbsp of spices) to the pan and bring to a simmer. Each color will need to simmer for a different amount of time and each product you can adjust color to as it simmers. Generally, you will simmer these for 15-30 mins.
3. If you have any residue in the bottom of your pan strain it so you have just the colored water. Allow the water to cool to room temperature.
4. Add vinegar to your colored water. The general rule of thumb is 1 Tbsp per cup of water. You can adjust this as some items (i.e. Butterfly Pea Flower) will change color as you add vinegar. For those items, add the amount of vinegar you want to get the color you are looking for.
5. Arrange cooled hard boiled eggs in a dish and pour dye over eggs covering them completely.
6. Place eggs in the refrigerator checking on them every few hours until desired color is achieved.
7. Remove eggs from dye. You can add them to a little rice for a dapple effect, or dry them and rub with a touch of oil to make them shine.
We would love to see pictures of how your eggs come out, please be sure to share them with us!
Happy Easter!
