blue eggs for Easter

Last year, spurred by memories of how we used to paint eggs for Easter as kids, I dyed eggs with onion skins that gave a sort of auburn result.

Only after that I read about using red cabbage to get beautiful blue coloured shells. I told myself then, that that's what I'll try out this year.

Although I ended up with different quantities and a tie-dye look, originally I spied the instructions on how to make the dye here. It's an easy process and you only need a few ingredients, namely red cabbage, white vinegar and some eggs to dye.

I used a quarter of a red cabbage, a litre and half of water and one tablespoon of white vinegar. I boiled the mixture for about half an hour. I set it aside to cool a little, with the cabbage still inside so it had a chance to tint the water more. (By the way, the liquid smelt kind of sweet and not too cabbagey, though I guess that could depend on the cabbage itself and maybe on the vinegar too.)

In terms of preserving the eggs I decided to blow them out (the egg whites and yolks were used up later in our dinner). So I washed them well, and with a big strong sewing needle I drilled holes into both ends. I made the holes large enough so it was possible to blow the insides out without getting purple in the face. Make sure you handle and hold the eggs gently so they won't get crushed in the process.

There came a little challenge when I wanted to submerge my empty eggshells in the cabbage liquid - they'd just float on top... I tried to fill them with liquid so they'd sink but that wouldn't happen. It was getting late at night so I came up with a solution that seemed a bit haphazard but it worked.

I placed the eggs at the bottom of a tall jug, piled lots of the cooked cabbage on top for weight and for cushioning, poured in the liquid and set a coffee mug on top to hold the whole thing down. Next I informed my boyfriend not to get scared of the odd jug of purple contents steaming away on the kitchen table overnight. And with that I went to bed.

The eggs stood in the liquid until the afternoon the following day, so they managed to garner a really nice deep cyan blue colour. They also managed a tie-dye appearance, I guess because of the cabbage and/or air bubbles trapped among them. I like the effect to be honest!

I think they'd look very nice strung up and hung on a branch in a vase.

Next year, it might be the year of a beetroot or a turmeric experiment... We'll see!