Friday, April 5, 2013

Veggie Dyed Eggs 2013

This year's Easter eggs were, as usual, part decoration and part science experiment. Last year we experimented with our red cabbage eggs, this year it was the yellow onions skins. We tested a couple of different methods. A friend on FB pointed me towards this blog and a method that produces crimson colored eggs. We've done onion skin eggs for years and have never had the luck to produce crimson colored eggs; ours turn out more reddish orange. I hope the owner of this blog will give us some more information on how she got the crimson color. Maybe it was the kind of onions she used. Anyway, as I said, we tested a couple of different methods.

On the left, boiled in the onion skins (following the directions on the Nourishing Minimalism blog), on the right, pre-boiled in plain water but soaked in onion skin juice for about 4-5 hours.
On the left, also boiled in the onion skins but left to soak overnight. On the right, pre-boiled in plain water and soaked in onion skin juice overnight. We really couldn't tell much of a difference between the 5 hours soakers and the overnight soakers.

We tried some baking soda to see if it would effect the color the way it does for cabbage eggs. We did both the in-skin boiling and the pre-boiling but added baking soda to them as they soaked. There did seem to be a change to the pre-boiled one on the right, but the one on the left that was boiled directly in the onion skins looks like the other two. Maybe with a few more lighter flecks.
 This one was just for fun. We let a pre-boiled egg sit overnight with the leftover onion skins piled all over it.
 This one was the same as above but with cabbage leaves. 
 If you have any questions about how we dye our eggs, I'd love to help. Remember... Easter is a season! Keep celebrating!
 

*These photos have not been edited in any way. 

4 comments:

  1. As always...you make the prettiest eggs...ever!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I always enjoy your natural eggs posts. I read in Martha Stewart Living Easter edition from this year that to make an intense red, use brown eggs. I thought that was a great tip!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I thought about using brown eggs, but someone asked the lady over at the other blog and she said she only used white. This might be worth another experiment! It's still Easter, right?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yes! We are still madly working on pysanky. My husband loves it, too, so that continues to inspire the boys.

    Other things to tweak: organic ingredients? Do you clean your eggs before dying? Store bought eggs have coating of stuff which makes it hard to take the dyes. I'm really enjoying farm fresh thus year. They really do take dyes better.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and yourself!