Using Natural Dyes for Easter Eggs

This year we decided to try using natural dyes for coloring some Easter Eggs. We always have on hand various fruits, vegetables, and spices that can be used to create dyes, so it was easy to get started.

We started by hard boiling a bunch of eggs.

Next up was preparing the ingredients, in this case, we selected blueberries and beets. You need about 2 cups of each. The blueberries were mashed up a bit and the beets were roughly chopped.

Then in separate saucepans, you boil the blueberries and beets in 2 cups of water for 10 minutes. When done, strain the colored water into bowls. The remains of the blueberries and beets can be thrown away or eaten!

Add 1 tsp of white vinegar to each bowl of dye, stir and then allow to cool to room temperature.

Now you are ready to dye the eggs! We poured the dye into two glasses so that we'd have a nice deep well to cover the eggs.

What was surprising with the results was that the blueberry dye was much more intense and fast acting than the beet dye. This was unexpected because the beets colored the water the instant they were put in, even before they were boiled. The blueberries didn't color the water until they were boiled. To get any serious color with the beet dye, we had to leave the egg in the dye at least 5 to 10 minutes, but with the blueberry, it took a minute or less.

This was a fun thing to do in between customers coming to our Life By Chocolate shop to buy up all of the chocolate rabbits and bunnies!

Next year we'll try some new colors.