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JennGM
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| Posted: March 28 2012 at 9:08am | IP Logged
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Robin's Egg Blue -- I'm just longing for that color for our Easter eggs.
I've been taking the lazy man's way of dyeing and using PAAS, but lately the colors disturb me. I know, that sounds strange, but they are so UNNATURAL.
I was thinking of going back to food coloring and trying something different. My boys are still too young to have the majority of our eggs dye overnight in the fridge -- takes too long.
I have read that red cabbage and vinegar will produce this color.
And on a different, but related note,
How do you dye your Easter eggs? The main event for us is decorating with crayons with all sorts of Easter symbols. We have two "competitions" -- the most beautiful egg will be chosen as the Alleluia Egg, and then in the Egg hunt when that egg is found that is the Grand Prize. The most eggs found is another prize.
Unless you have farm fresh eggs (which you are so blessed!) the store-bought eggs have some kind of coating, so they need to be washed in soap (like Ivory dishwashing liquid) and a bit of vinegar so the crayons will stick to the shell.
But I also heard that soy is being used for the crayons, so the wax doesn't stick as much...and that would make sense. The formula doesn't seem the same as I remember.
After decorating, we dye the eggs, and right now it's PAAS we use.
Since we do pysanky at other times, I don't want something too complicated -- the children already get tired of drawing on the eggs because they love the dyeing process.
I'm all bunny ears to hear ideas!
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Jennifer G. Miller
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: March 28 2012 at 9:16am | IP Logged
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Dh's family has traditionally simply used the method where the eggs are boiled with saved yellow onion skins and vinegar to make them gold and shiny. It really is pretty!
I'm embarrassed to say that I've intended to dye eggs for, oh, eight years now and have always felt too overwhelmed. For years, I was heavily involved in choir/cantoring, and the last few years, we've been in charge of decorating our church for Easter, so Holy Week has just been a busy time!
On a somewhat related note, I recently began cooking eggs by baking them in the oven instead of dying them! I find it more convenient for doing large quantities (like three dozen at a time). Some crack, but then, that happens when boiling as well.
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JennGM
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| Posted: March 28 2012 at 9:20am | IP Logged
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We do the eggs on Holy Saturday, although we have a baseball practice and I don't know how we'll squeeze it in, also with preparing for the Vigil.
Might have to do it Good Friday? It's contemplative work.
Plus the other problem I find is I want to do the Easter basket blessing at church which is 8:00 am Holy Saturday morning.
Let me just confess that I don't have my Easter foods or eggs all ready by 8:00 am Holy Saturday. 
Oven method? Interesting. My no-fail egg boiling is to just cover the eggs with water, and as soon as they come to boiling, turn off the heat and cover for 10 minutes, then rinse in cold water. No greenish outside on the yolk, perfect eggs every time. Little risk of breakage, too.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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JennGM
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| Posted: March 28 2012 at 9:22am | IP Logged
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Let me just insert that one of the things I long for is a timeline from our mothers and grandmothers on all the things we would like to get done during Holy Week -- especially if they attended the different Triduum services.
It seems impossible to get it all done. Do you bake way ahead of time? Seems like it needs to be done closer to the event, right?
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Jennifer G. Miller
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: March 28 2012 at 9:23am | IP Logged
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I've used that method, too, Jenn. It is good--if I remember to keep an eye on the pot so that I can move it as soon as it comes to a boil! Done correctly, it makes the best eggs, but I usually forget and they boil without me  I like the oven method because I can set a time from the outset.
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JennGM
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| Posted: March 28 2012 at 9:25am | IP Logged
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CrunchyMom wrote:
| I've used that method, too, Jenn. It is good--if I remember to keep an eye on the pot so that I can move it as soon as it comes to a boil! Done correctly, it makes the best eggs, but I usually forget and they boil without me I like the oven method because I can set a time from the outset. |
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Heehee. Yesterday I was boiling eggs and forgot. I usually set the timer to come back and check. I heard some strange noise and went to the kitchen to investigate...and it was my eggs boiling.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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Mackfam
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| Posted: March 28 2012 at 10:09am | IP Logged
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JennGM wrote:
Let me just insert that one of the things I long for is a timeline from our mothers and grandmothers on all the things we would like to get done during Holy Week -- especially if they attended the different Triduum services.
It seems impossible to get it all done. Do you bake way ahead of time? Seems like it needs to be done closer to the event, right? |
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Oh yes! Wouldn't this be nice! Perhaps it's best if we daughters sit down and start asking questions, taking notes, considering and dropping things into a calendar-type timeline....to be able to hand on to our children.
My mom has done this with Thanksgiving, but I need something for Christmas and Easter!!
I'm really glad to know the foolproof egg boiling tips! I have a few links to share:
How to Make Natural Easter Egg Dyes - I like the method, and she gets some good colors, but I wish she'd say which combination yielded which colors.
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Coloring Easter Eggs Naturally
Inseason: Natural Dyes - this one says that a soft, Robins Egg Blue is derived from boiling red cabbage! Definitely trying this one!
Jenn, you know you and I share a delight for all-things-Robin's-Egg-Blue!!
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| Posted: March 28 2012 at 10:09am | IP Logged
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I don't buy the PAAS. Instead I fill a coffee mug with water, a teaspoon of vinegar, and a few squeezes of food coloring.
I usually hard-boil the eggs, but I tried baking eggs for the first time last week and I will probably do it that way for decorating eggs. (It's kind of a pain to hard-boil two dozen eggs at once). It's so easy - 325 degrees for 30 minutes. Then rinse under cold water (any brown spots on the eggshell come off if you use the kitchen sprayer).
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Grace&Chaos
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| Posted: March 28 2012 at 11:11am | IP Logged
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I've been wanting to decorate eggs naturally for a few years now. But my husband's dear aunt always brings tons of those tablet dyes (she brought them over this past weekend  ) and we've traditionally dyed eggs on Holy Saturday too.
I think I'm going to try just a few on natural dyes this year anyway, maybe just for the sake of trying Thanks for the links 
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Theresa H
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| Posted: March 28 2012 at 11:42am | IP Logged
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I'm not sure how to obtain Robin Egg Blue, but our family uses PAAS or other egg coloring kit (usually cheapest or purchased after Easter the year before) and BROWN eggs. The colors become much deeper and prettier.
Because we have our own chickens, we started using brown eggs years ago and haven't looked back. Purchased brown eggs may have the same coating that Jenn mention above that would need to be washed off before dying.
I would love to hear if any of you try the brown eggs and what results you had.
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JodieLyn
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Well let's just start with the fact that we dye way more eggs than we necessarily want to eat  But everyone wants to get to dye multiples.
For your robin's egg blue you might try some combo of dying in blue and switching to green or green very lightly before blue or such.
We just use purchased dyes because a great deal of the fun especially for the younger kids is the dying.
What I've found that works ok for my crew is that we dye all the eggs and then plunk the youngest kids into the tub (which by this time they need) and that let's the older kids do some fancier bits on the eggs without the havoc created by the youngers.
As for a timeline of when to do things.. one thing that helps greatly is a list.. and I now have a permanant list of "Easter Meals and Goodies". That lists things like Hot crossed buns on Good Friday and Eggs Benedict on Easter Monday - or the second Sunday of Easter (because there's no point in a big breakfast on Easter with the candy and hardboiled eggs and such) And it lists our typical meal of Ham and mashed potatoes and asparagus and jello and such. AND it lists the yummy things like kolacky and pound cake and butterhorns and cream mints etc.
But by having that list and as I figure it out I also try and put the goodies in order of making as far as which can be made earlier than others so the pound cake would likely be at the top of the list because not only can it be made ahead it can even be frozen successfully and since I keep it simple.. I often make a chocolate pound cake and then just dust with pwd sugar to make it pretty (lay a cut out cross on top before doing the sugar and it leaves the relief of a cross on top).. it would be easy to make that well ahead and just pull out to defrost and sprinkle sugar on close to Easter.
But when we do things gets really complicated..for instance this year I have a server for Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Vigil plus my oldest reading prayers of the faithful on Easter Sunday  on top of that is Scouts 2 evenings and Lacrosse practise for the oldest 5 all week etc etc.
I currently have no clue when we'll decorate eggs. But we might do some baking this weekend.
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MaryM
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| Posted: March 28 2012 at 12:52pm | IP Logged
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Well, then let me add a little something to brighten everyone's day. Aren't they lovely.?
Hey, aren't our 4 Real colors here a bit toward "robin's egg blue" in color?? 
Aren't these robin's egg truffles sweet?
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: March 28 2012 at 1:23pm | IP Logged
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Mackfam wrote:
Inseason: Natural Dyes - this one says that a soft, Robins Egg Blue is derived from boiling red cabbage! Definitely trying this one!
Jenn, you know you and I share a delight for all-things-Robin's-Egg-Blue!! |
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I can see how this might work. The stain from red cabbage is often a dingy gray, and it is the gray that mutes Robin's Egg, I think, to make it so comfortable and warm compared to a sky blue or straight aqua.
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stefoodie
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Oh, and I thought I was the only one thinking robin's egg blue! Or, as a friend calls it, Tiffany Blue!
found this link to do it with red cabbage and vinegar. But I really wish I could get small eggs somewhere.... quail eggs won't work, right?
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| Posted: March 28 2012 at 3:46pm | IP Logged
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Oh I was so surprised! I was doing some ordering for Mom and I at Frontier Natural, and saw that they had a VERY informative article on natural dyeing. Thought I'd pop over and link it in case it's useful to someone else besides me. 
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JennGM
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| Posted: March 28 2012 at 4:59pm | IP Logged
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That is a nice article. I have a bunch bookmarked. I remember one in particular done by Celestial Seasonings, which is no longer online, except this version in the http://www.celestialseasonings.com/tea-health/egg-dyeing.htm which you need to search on web archive and go to an early date, but versions are:
Natural Dyes for Your Easter Eggs
There were two articles linked, which have been my favorite so far (except they don't mention robin's egg blue), so I copied them into a .pdf:
2012-03-28_165930_Celestial_Seasonings_Articles.pdf
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Jennifer G. Miller
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JennGM
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JennGM wrote:
| But I also heard that soy is being used for the crayons, so the wax doesn't stick as much...and that would make sense. The formula doesn't seem the same as I remember. |
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I found two kinds of inexpensive beeswax crayons (just over $10 for 24 crayons and the usual palette of colors. I'm waiting for these to arrive:
International Arrivals Natural Beeswax Crayons, Set of 24
And I just got these:
Faber-Castell 24ct Beeswax Crayons. Be aware these are more jumbo size with triangular shape.
I ordered the latter first, but didn't realize they were the bigger size, so I thought I'd compare with the International brand. Plus, there's always a big fight for black.
The crazyons write on the egg so smoothly, and the color stays. I'm excited for our Easter eggs this year.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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JennGM
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Oh, probably late for this year, but some sources for food safe dye. These are usually used for krashanky or less intense pysanky.
Surma has non-toxic dyes
Wax Art Supply Edible Easter Dyes. I love the Jewel tone, but the basic is pretty too.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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| Posted: March 30 2012 at 4:00pm | IP Logged
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I went to the local market today and bought:
1 red cabbage
4 red beets
30 white eggs
30 brown eggs
I have tea, I have coffee, I have onions...
I almost bought dried chili spice, but hesitated for fear that the fire would go through the egg shell. Can you imagine biting into an Easter egg with chili effects??  If there is the tiniest of cracks in the egg and it was soaking in a chili concoction for hours...!!!!! EEEEEEEKKK!
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I want to know how the natural dyes turn out for you all! Earlier in the week we tried cranberries and canned blueberries. I had read that the cranberries would make pink, and the blueberries would be blue. Um...not so much! We had very faint olive green and grey.  My hubby thought I was nuts for not using regular dye. 
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4Real Forums : The Arts in the Everyday
Topic: Easter Eggs and Robin's Egg Blue
