Making Dyed Eggs

Need a quick and fun activity for kids in the spring? Dying eggs is easy and fun, and doesn't need to be a complete mess. Here is how you do it!

You need:

eggs. You have almost unlimited dye, so go for it. I'll load up some hard-boiled egg recipes soon.
Food dye. You can get those little sets of 4 colors. They've gotten expensive in the grocery; if you are paying more than 2 bucks, you are overpaying for them.
1 tablespoon of vinegar for each color you want.
1/2 cup water per color.
a cup or mug for each color. I find corningware mugs work perfectly. If you use white, you get a better view of the color.
newspaper to cover the work area. You don't want the dye on your kitchen table or floor.

For each color you want, put 1/2 cup of water, 1 tablespoon of vinegar, and eight drops of dye in a cup or mug. For purple, use 4 red and 4 blue; for orange, use 4 yellow and 4 red.

Put egg in the mug. Leave for at least a few seconds; the longer you leave the egg in, the darker and brighter the hue will be. Purple tends to be the muddiest color, we often leave that one off.

Want shiny eggs? Rub them with a little veggie oil.

Voila! Beautifully dyed eggs! Now you can add stickers and stuff!

Also, you can draw on them with a white crayon before dying them, and make designs!

The set-up usually takes longer than the dying, but the kids like it.

How to hard-boil an egg:
Believe it or not, there are a variety of ways to hard-boil eggs. My favorite method:

Buy eggs about a week before. Older eggs peel easier.

Take the eggs out of the fridge. If you do this about half an hour before you cook them, you'll have less crackage.

Get out a large pot.

Place a layer of eggs in the bottom. get out some paper towels and set them on these eggs, and put another layer on top. Don't do more than two layers at a time. The towels prevent cracking.

Cover the eggs with cool-to-cold water. Remember, those eggs are still cold, and we don't want crackage.

Place on stove and heat to a boil.

Once the eggs come to a boil, turn off the heat, cover, and let sit for 20 minutes.

Now you can cool your eggs and dye them. Cooling quickly with cold water will prevent green yolk.

If you want a fancy, full explanation of hardboiled eggs, I recommend The Egg Gourmet.