This is Logan’s second Easter, and since he is almost two I decided to have our first go at egg dying. This is the first holiday we are getting to do an activity together and it fills my heart to the brim to be making these sweet memories with him. I haven’t dyed eggs for years, but knew I wanted to keep things organic and for the eggs to be edible, I decided to try my hand at making dye from various foods. I did some reading and found the most common foods used for this purpose are red cabbage, beets, turmeric and coffee. I brainstormed what other foods might yield nice shades and decided to also use radishes and spirulina powder.
Since I wasn’t using synthetic dye, i knew it would take more concentrated color get the egg shells to yield rich hues. I made most of the dyes the day before. For the cabbage and radish dyes, I boiled water with the respective vegetable inside for about 5-10 minutes. The cabbage colored the water very quickly, while the radishes didn’t do too much yet. I poured the water with the cabbage leaves and radishes into jars and sealed them immediately. I wanted the heat to stay inside as long as possible to extract as much color as I could.
I opted to use a different method for the beet and turmeric dyes because these items are powerful dyes and I didn’t think they needed the extra step of boiling. I simply filled two 16 oz jar with one beet sliced up and a two inch square of turmeric root chopped (you can also use powdered turmeric I guess but I saw the root at the store and opted for that route!). After boiling water, I just poured it into the jars and sealed them immediately as well. I left the jars on the counter overnight to soak and cure. I didn’t want to chill them because I wanted them room temp when we dyed the eggs.
I didn’t brew the coffee before hand or make the spirulina dye either. Spirulina is extremely potent and I thought it would work well just mixed with boiling water the day of, and I figured I could do the same with coffee.
In case you haven’t gathered this yet, I really just flew by the seat of my pants on this one!
The next day we dyes our eggs! Professional tip: when dyeing eggs with a toddler make sure to have extra because more than one will get broken in an earnest effort to put it gently in the pot of water.
I boiled the eggs for 6 minutes in plain water and transferring them to the jars of dye I had made the day before. I checked them at 15 minutes, and only the beet and coffee eggs were beginning to take color, the rest were still white. After the jars had sat sealed on the counter for about an hour (enough time to cool), I set them in the refrigerator to cure overnight.
When we took them out the next day it was a very pleasant surprise to see that most of the eggs had turned beautiful colors. The spirulina was a bust and the eggs were still left white, while the radishes yielded a soft ivory color, barely different from the starting white, but I like it.
Below you can see the tone each color. My favorites were the red cabbage and coffee eggs. I also like how the eggs don’t have the exact same tone all throughout. The natural variations make them so lovely!
These would look gorgeous in a bowl as an edible centerpiece for Easter brunch.
Honestly I think this was cheaper than using store bought dye and I love things that explore the wonderful versatility of things we have right inside our home!
coffee:
cabbage:
beets:
turmeric:
Logan didn’t do too much to help; at 23 months old he was most interested in putting the eggs in the water, saying ”hot hot hot” while they boiled, and playing with the empty carton. But I am still glad we did it! I think with kids it’s easy to wait for the perfect time to start things with them, but really earlier is better. Their involvement will change each year and that’s okay!
Next year I want to also try using golden beets and tea. Have you dyed eggs before? What’s your favorite method?
After making the dyes I wondered how they would do as alternatives to synthetic dyes for frosting..more on that in another post coming soon!
XO. B
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