Stephan made some pretty Easter eggs with some old parsely leaves and onion peels for dye. I think they came out quite nicely! Click for more detail.
The Stücklins took us out to Blüemlismatt for a beautiful view and treats in the sunny breeze. Here are the birthday buddies about to enjoy their Swiss treats: Vacherintorte!
Only one of the eggs was white, which is why the others don't have as nice a contrast.
More details about the process:
- I boiled onion peels loosely in the pan, which gives a nice even coloring. It's also possible to wrap onion peels around the eggs and tie them in cheesecloth, which gives a livelier dye pattern.
- The reason I picked the more even coloring was that I wanted the parsley to come out sharp. You can get parsley or any other pretty leaf silhouetted on the egg simply by placing it on the egg and tying the ensemble up in an old stocking.
- You can get a deeper color if after boiling the eggs in the dye you let the eggs sit in the pan as it cools down.
- Some folks recommend boiling with vinegar. I'm not sure what that does to the taste.
- There are plenty of other plants that work and give other colors, as a quick internet search revealed: boil with onion peels for beige, soak in blueberry juice for blue, boil with black tea for brown (instead of sending those used bags to missionaries), soak in spinach juice for green, soak in cowberry (cowberry = lingonberry = foxberry = mountain cranberry = Vaccinium vitis-idaea) juice for pink, soak in vinegar and beet juice for red, boil with saffron or chamomile blossoms for yellow, boil with garlic peels for a gentle gray, red cabbage for a reddish purple (which I suspect would be a purplish blue if boiled in an alkaline solution).
The eggs are beautiful (and so are the birthday girls).
Oh, I remember the red cabbage litmus test! We used food coloring most of the time, thought the traditional standard around here is PAAS. Your natural way sounds like great fun, though. I believe vinegar is supposed to set the dye...at any rate, I've never noticed an effect on the taste.
In my childhood the hidden eggs were hard boiled and decorated. In Florida, however, Easter was always too warm to leave the eggs out overnight, so even though we decorated eggs, the ones for the hunt were plastic.
I remember finding a marshmallow egg (hard candy coating) in a shoe well after Easter had passed. I've never liked them and maybe Dad's decision to hide them in shoes is part of the reason :)
