Thursday, April 9, 2009

Natural dyes for Easter Eggs

Sometimes take on a bit of the flavor of what they died with... cherry and onion flavored eggs are a bit icky.

Directions:
Put eggs in as large a pan as possible. The process works better if the eggs aren't stacked on top of each other. This may mean you can only do 3 or 4 at a time (but that will give you the chance to try more than one kind of natural dye)
Fill the pan with water so that it's about 1/2 inch over the eggs
Add the natural dye material it takes a fair amount of the dye... for example, 1 cup of cherries

Bring water to a boil. Reduce to a simmer for 20 minutes.
With a strainer, remove the eggs onto a bowl covered with paper towel.
If the eggs aren't as dark as you'd like, remove the paper towel from the bowl and add the cooled strained liquid you originally used to dye the eggs.
Let sit overnight.


Natural Dyes you might try:
Red/Pink: Fresh beets, canned cherries or frozen, crushed cranberries (not cranberry sauce or jelly)
Orange: yellow onion skins
Light Yellow: lemon peels, orange peels or ground cumin
Golden yellow: Ground Tumeric (a kind of spice)
Light Spinach
Blue: Red cabbage leaves or blueberries (crushed)
- Pre-boil red cabbage leaves for 30 minutes.
Purple: Grape juice (Welches)

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