Ever since I was a child, I have loved this long standing tradition of dyeing Easter eggs. And when I think back, there were five littles, and I feel like we dyed eggs for days. Mom? How many eggs did you hard cook?
Times have changed, and with only two littles here, and neither one will even eat eggs, it’s just a dozen. They each get five, I grab two for me because I am not missing out on the fun. Before we get to the fun, let’s talk about the best way, and easiest way (at least for me) to hard cook eggs that PEEL easily.
Before you even put the eggs in the pot, you are going to need a sharp object to poke small holes in the tops of the eggs. I used a kabob skewer. Gently poke a hole in the top. Ok, as gently as you can. You are going to have use some force. Just take your time. Leaving them in the carton helps give you much need leverage and keeps you from cracking an egg in your hand. Oh, it’s happened friends, and it wasn’t pretty. This step is important; it allows for easy peeling of the eggs when the time comes.
Once you have holes poked in all your eggs, place them in large pot. Cover with cold water.
Cook on high heat, until you have brought the water to a rolling boil.
Remove from heat, and cover with a lid. Set the timer to 15 minutes. I actually took a picture of the pot covered, but my phone was flipped and therefore you would be looking at an upside down pot with my hand, and phone reflected in it. So for this step, just imagine what your pot looks like with a lid on it.
When the 15 minutes are up, pour the hot water out, and run the eggs under cold water for several minutes. When the pot is cool to the touch, the eggs are cool enough.
After cooling, you can peel and eat, peel and make an egg sandwich, peel and put in a salad, peel and make deviled eggs. Or in my case, I put them in the carton and returned them to the fridge until I was ready for dyeing.
Some of you Pinterest users will remember a few years back the Kool-Aid® egg dyeing hack. I am not going to lie, the first year dyeing eggs with L&L, I did it. And it worked. And it wasn’t super messy. And all the while my mom was complaining that egg dyeing wasn’t the same without the vinegar scent in the air. And afterwards, I had to agree. So, I returned to the ever classic McCormick® method.
L&L, “Mom, what is that smell?”
Me, “The scent of egg dyeing.”
L&L, “What?”
Me, “Okay. Fine. It’s vinegar.”
So here’s a funny little thing. We get our eggs delivered from South Mountain Creamery, and they are brown. Each year, I say to myself that I will right down the colors that don’t really work, and each year, I forget. Now I don’t have to because I am just going to document it here. For the record, when dyeing brown eggs purple, orange, lime green are not your best color options. I didn’t realize until I was already setting up that I only had the NEON color pack, so next year I may have more to add.
We practiced dyeing eggs two colors with out even using the special PAAS® egg holder. Since we are on the 1980s for a minute another lesson I learned today. Apparently a 16 box of crayons doesn’t have the color white in it. And washable crayons don’t work on dyeing eggs. And thus, I wrote our names in permanent marker. Next year, I am going to have to fix that. I remember it being like magic. I want that for L&L too.
Lastly, my mom would keep the eggs in a basket and just put them back in the fridge. Clearly, the tradition continues.
