Easter Cooking

 

Use only white-shelled eggs for decorating, otherwise, speckled and brown eggs do not take on the dye as well.

 

Decorating Easter Eggs is a really simple thing to do.  Some of the effects you can achieve look really impressive.

 

Hard boil the eggs first.  You can change the colour of the egg shell by boiling in spinach or beetroot.  The spinach will turn the egg-shell a pale green colour and the beetroot will turn the shell a pale pink.

 

You can try wrapping onion or shallot skins around the eggs and tie with some brown cotton.  This will give the egg a browny, mottled effect.

 

Flower petals can be placed on damp eggs and then covered with the onion skin.  If left to dry, the eggs will take on the imprint of the petals and the onion skin.

 

You can also add a few drops of vegetable dye to the water when boiling.  Vegetable dye comes in many colours - red, green, blue or yellow give great results.

 

Use narrow strips of masking tape to make geometric shapes.  Peeling off the tape after the eggs have been dyed will reveal white patterns on a coloured background. 

 

The dyed eggs can then be decorated with crayons, vegetable dyes, water colours or oil paints. 

 

Complicated designs should be dipped in vegetable dye first and then traced on uncooked eggs.

 

Children will delight in a chocolate egg within a chicken egg!  Carefully pierce the broad end of a raw egg with a small skewer and shake out the white and yolk.  Leave the empty egg shell to dry thoroughly.  Pour some melted chocolate into the egg, using a cake decorating kit, and leave to set. 

 

Have a great Easter!     Take a look at some of our easter recipes: