Since today is Good Friday and on Sunday it will be Easter Sunday (for Christians and anyone who loves chocolate!), Roy decided that the perfect thing to do would be create some Easter Eggs. There were lots of choices how to do this. Would he make chocolate eggs, or blow an egg and paint it, or perhaps just use some dye to create interesting patterns. He even thought about tie-dying the eggs! Then, I told him about making onion skin Easter Eggs when I was a little girl and he thought this sounded perfect - easy to do, spectacular results, and an edible hard-boiled egg at the end! If you don't like the taste of onion, don't worry the egg is not at all flavoured, just pretty!
Although today we often think of Easter Eggs as chocolate, traditionally eggs were simply decorated to celebrate Easter and given as gifts. Eggs symbolise renewal and new life and are given traditionally at Easter. Once, during Lent, which ends on Holy Saturday, the day before Easter Sunday, eggs were not eaten. So, before Lent began the eggs were used up and this is where Pancake Day comes from because they would be used to finish the eggs. Egg eating started up again on Easter Sunday when it was traditional to give gifts of eggs. If you would like to learn more about Easter and egg giving, click here.
Onion Skin Dyed Easter Eggs
You Will Need:
- Eggs, brought up to room temperature (so they will be less likely to crack when you boil them)
- Onion skins - I always traditionally made yellow eggs using brown onion skin, but Roy and I tried making one with purple onion too - we didn't think it worked as well, but you can have a go yourself if you like. It might work better if you can get very white eggs - ours were brown.
- An old stocking or 2
- A saucepan
- Water
- Salt
- Vegetable oil
Method:
- Dip your eggs in water - it will help the onion skins stick to the eggs
- Wrap your egg in the onion skin
- Put your eggs into the stocking - if you decide to do two colours you should make them separately
- Half fill your saucepan with water and add a pinch of salt. Again, if you are making 2 colours use two separate saucepans.
- Add your stocking of eggs to the saucepan. You want the water to cover your eggs so add more if you need to.
- Bring to the boil - don't put the lid on or the eggs will boil too fast and crack.
- Boil for 6 minutes or so, until the eggs are hard boiled. Roy and I used a wooden spoon to roll ours over occasionally, just to make sure the colour was even.
- Cool your eggs down by running cold water over them. Simply put the saucepan in the sink and turn the cold tap on. The hot water will cool down slowly as it replaced by cold water so your eggs shouldn't crack and they should stop cooking!
- When they are cool enough to touch, take your eggs out of the stocking and unwrap the onion skin.
- Wipe your eggs dry.
- Rub a little vegetable oil over the eggs - this gives them a nice shine and seals the pores so they keep better.
- Use as a decoration or simply peel and enjoy!