My sister-in-law and I gave our first attempt at natural egg dying on Friday. It was a fun experiment, and some of the dyes worked really well and relatively fast. Check it out!
We let the kids dye eggs with store-bought artificial dye kits while we got started on our natural dyes (which take a lot longer to prepare and dye than the pop a tablet of dye into vinegar kind). -- Don't worry, the little one on the left has juice in his cup, not dye. :)
We looked at several different natural egg dying blog posts to get ideas for ingredients to make our dyes. Here's what we ended up trying:
Back Row: beets, red onion skins, yellow onion skins, turmeric, turmeric + blueberries
Front Row: blueberries, red cabbage, grape juice concentrate, strawberry puree
OUR METHOD was to boil all the dye ingredients (separately of course) to extract the color from the food/spice. Then we strained the liquid from the food bits, poured the dye solution into mason jars, added a little vinegar, then dropped in an egg. The only exception to this method was the grape juice concentrate, which we just thawed and added the egg directly to it, and the strawberries which for some reason we tried to puree them in the blender instead of boiling them. As you'll see in the photos below, that didn't work. At all. If I ever try using strawberries again, I'll definitely boil them instead.
After a few hours of letting the eggs sit in our natural dyes, here's what we got:
beets, red onion skins, yellow onion skins
turmeric, turmeric + blueberries, blueberries
red cabbage, grape juice concentrate, strawberry puree
Like I said above, the strawberry puree did absolutely nothing. If you attempt strawberries, try boiling them instead. And actually, just try boiling raspberries instead of strawberries, because that is what all the websites recommended. We just happened to have strawberries on hand so we tried them, but messed up on the method. Oh well. :)
The beets and red onion skins were the last dyes we made, so their eggs didn't sit in the dye bath as long as the others. I think they would have produced a better color had they sat longer. Also, we didn't have as many red onion skins as we did yellow onion skins, which accounts for the drastic difference in color saturation between the red and yellow onion eggs. The turmeric worked great! As did the blueberries, and the interesting combination of turmeric plus blueberries (a suggestion on one of the blogs we found) which produced a beautiful green. But next time I would try straining the blueberry solution through something finer like cheesecloth to get a smoother texture. The speckling on these eggs is kind of beautiful though.
The kids got out the costume box to entertain themselves while we worked on our natural dyes. :)
Left Bowl: grape juice concentrate, strawberry puree, red onion skins, beets, red cabbage
Right Bowl: blueberries, yellow onion skins, turmeric, turmeric + blueberries
** Now an interesting thing happened when I put these eggs back into their cardboard container and drove the 10-minute drive back to my house. THEY CHANGED COLOR! Check it out:
Here's how the eggs looked before I left my sister-in-law's house:
beets, red onion skins, yellow onion skins
turmeric, turmeric + blueberries, blueberries
red cabbage, grape juice concentrate, strawberry puree
And here's how they looked when I got them home:
yellow onion skins, turmeric, turmeric + blueberries, blueberries
red cabbage, beets, grape juice concentrate, red onion skins
The four eggs in the back stayed mostly the same color, but the eggs in the front changed dramatically! I don't know if it was having them enclosed in the egg carton or the heat from the trunk of my car or what, but I was very surprised when I got them home and saw the different colors.
Here's a side-by-side comparison with lines connecting the same eggs before and after their change in color:
color-changed eggs as pictured in bottom photo:
red cabbage, beets, grape juice concentrate, red onion skins
I really don't know what made those four eggs change colors like that--maybe we needed to let them dry longer before putting them back into their cardboard carton?--but they turned out beautifully.
clockwise from left-center: red onion skins, grape juice concentrate, yellow onion skins, blueberries, red cabbage, beets, turmeric + blueberries, and turmeric in center.
COLORS AS THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO APPEAR:
PINK: beets / strawberries?
RED: red onion skins
ORANGE: yellow onion skins
YELLOW: turmeric
GREEN: turmeric + blueberries
BLUE: red cabbage / grape juice concentrate
PURPLE: blueberries
WHAT WORKED:
- Blueberries - boiled in enough water to cover for about 20-30 minutes. Strained liquid, let egg sit in liquid for 1-2 hours. Produced a lovely marbled dark blueish color. Would have done differently: strained through cheesecloth to get smoother consistency and less marbling on egg color.
- Turmeric - boiled a few tablespoons in water until dissolved. Let egg sit in liquid for 1-2 hours. Produced a rich yellow color.
- Turmeric + blueberries - combined some blueberry liquid with some turmeric liquid. Let egg sit in liquid for 1-2 hours. Produced a nice green hue with blue marbling (see "would have done differently" under blueberries to reduce marbling).
- Yellow Onion Skins - boiled skins from about 8 onions in water for 20-30 minutes. Let egg sit in liquid for 1-2 hours. Produced a rich red-orange color.
WOULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY:
- Beets - boil beets longer and let egg sit in liquid longer. (only boiled for about 10-minutes. Egg sat in dye for less than one hour).
- Red Onion Skins - boil more skins and let egg sit in liquid longer. (only boiled skins from two onions. Egg sat in dye for less than one hour).
- Red Cabbage - chop cabbage smaller to allow for less water in boiling. Let egg sit in liquid longer. (Boiled 1/4 head of cabbage cut into large pieces for about 30 minutes. Egg sat in dye for 1-2 hours).
- Grape Juice Concentrate - maybe try 100% juice not from concentrate instead? Let egg sit in liquid longer. (Egg sat in dye for about one hour).
- Strawberries - boil to extract color, let egg sit in liquid longer. (Pureed berries instead of boiling. Did not work at all. Egg sat in puree for about one hour).
WEBSITES FOR DYE MIXTURES AND METHODS: these are the websites I found and referenced to make our natural dyes.
- Two Men and a Little Farm - has a great list of several options for each dye color
- Comfy Tummy - their colors are so rich! I will try their method next time (boil dye material for 30 minutes, then boil egg in dye liquid (instead of hard boiling before sitting in dye).
- The Make Your Own Zone - good color saturation also.
- Katie Did - shows lots of variations in results. Her red cabbage blues turned out so pretty!
OVERALL REACTION TO NATURAL EGG DYING: it's a lot more time consuming than using the dye packets you buy at the store, but the natural dyes produce beautiful, natural, rich colors not found in the store-bought dyes. I will definitely try it again with a few alterations. You should try it too! And if you do, let me know how it goes!
Now the only problem is, the eggs are so beautiful, I don't want to crack them open to eat them! :)
