Easter Eggs

Whipped Cream Dyed Easter Eggs

While we may not be able to celebrate Easter as we normally do this year there is one activity that can still be fun and remain the same… Dyeing Easter Eggs.

There are plenty of creative ways to dye Easter eggs… The traditional way of using water, vinegar and food coloring, the all-natural method of using vegetables and spices or the fancy way of using silk ties. And then there are bunch of different methods in between. One of those, the shaving cream method. With this method you swirl food coloring into a dish of shaving cream and then set the eggs in the cream so they can absorb the color swirl. The only problem with this method is that the shaving cream makes the eggs inedible since egg shells are porous. I definitely don’t think it’s safe to eat a hard-boiled egg that may have traces of shaving cream on it. So, instead of shaving cream you can use whipped topping to achieve the same results and also have eggs that are still safe to eat after decorating.

After boiling your eggs let them cool completely. I suggest saving the carton from your eggs so you can store them in there once they have been dyed. Pour vinegar into a medium bowl and submerge the eggs in the vinegar for about two minutes. Remove the eggs and pat them dry with a paper towel. Set aside.

Now, you can make your own whipped cream if you choose, but, I opted to buy frozen whipped topping, aka Cool Whip. I placed it in the refrigerator overnight so that it could defrost. Once defrosted, I emptied the contents of 2 8oz. tubs of whipped topping into a 9×9-inch baking dish. Next, I dotted the top with gel food coloring. I opted to use three colors, I wouldn’t suggest using more colors than three as the colors can get really muddled together then. I would also try avoid using colors that when blended together make a new color, i.e. red and yellow (orange), blue and yellow (green), red and blue (purple), and so forth. Using a toothpick I swirled the colors into the topping, making sure to get the color into the bottom of the dish as well so that when I submerged the eggs they would be completely covered with the dyed whipped topping. I then placed the eggs in the whipped topping. I fit about 9 eggs in the 9×9-inch dish. I covered the top of the eggs with the whipped topping and I let the eggs sit there for about 15-20 minutes. The longer the eggs sit, the more vibrant the colors will be.

Next, I removed the eggs from the whipped topping and placed them in a bowl of water to clean them off. You don’t want to wipe the whipped topping off with a napkin as this could rub the colors off as well. After rinsing the eggs off I placed them on paper towels so they could dry off and then placed them back in the egg carton.

Overall I was happy with how these eggs came out. My nieces were especially happy. I think it was the first time that we dyed eggs and the eggs actually had a nice color to them.

Supplies:

18 hardboiled eggs

Vinegar

4 8oz. tubs of whipped topping

Food Coloring – preferably gel

2 9×9-inch (or 8×8-inch) baking dishes

2 Bowls

Toothpicks

Paper towels

Marbleized Easter Eggs

Do you remember dyeing Easter eggs as a kid? I remember my eggs hardly ever came out the way the PAAS packaging illustrated it would. Maybe I just hadn’t honed in on my crafting skills yet or quite possibly there was more to the decorating that wasn’t explained in the instructions. You know those little tips and tricks you learn by trial and error. I would always wonder too if they were safe to eat. My parents strongly advised against it and I would soon agree once I peeled one or two that had cracked during boiling and the egg white was some funky color due to the dye.

Fast forward a few years and now decorating eggs is on a whole new level. Instead of using real eggs, I’m using this nifty plastic craft eggs I found at Michaels that I can use for years to come to decorate around my house. And forget about dyeing them, I go with using paint to get the exact color I want.

And that brings me to the topic of this blog post… Marbleized Easter Eggs. To create the marbleized affect I lined a plastic shoe box with wax paper. I then squirted some of the paint colors on to the wax paper. Next I placed one of the craft eggs in the shoe box and tilted the box back and forth to roll the egg around so I could get the marbled affect.

I let the eggs dry…

And soon had a dozen marbleized Easter eggs…

And since I wasn’t too happy with the chalky look of the eggs I sprayed them with a gloss clear spray to give them a little shine. Unfortunately this picture doesn’t show it all that well.

Along with marbleized eggs, I also made two sets of gold-foiled eggs. One that I made last year with more bold colors and one this year with more pastel Spring-like colors. These are quite easy to create as well, but, you will need a Gold Leaf Kit, which you can purchase at your local craft store. You start off by painting the eggs and letting the paint completely dry. Next, you apply the adhesive to the egg, not on the entire surface as you just want the gold foil in random places. You let the adhesive dry for about 10-15 minutes. It’s ready once it begins to feel tacky. Next, you place the gold foil around the egg and using a clean brush brush off the excess gold paper where it didn’t stick. And finally, apply the sealant to the eggs to ensure that the gold foil won’t tarnish and to give the egg a nice sheen.

Please note you could also use these techniques with blown out Easter eggs. I’ll be honest it’s something I have never tried. I feel that if I did I would more than likely break the egg trying to get the contents out and these plastic eggs are so much easier to store! You could very well use hard-boiled eggs, but, I feel like if you are going to decorate your eggs so lovely you should be able to keep them for years to come.

I hope you enjoy dyeing, painting, crafting, hunting or whatever you choose to do with your Easter eggs!

Chocolate Bunny Topped Easter Cake

Happy Easter! A few weeks ago when I posted about the Springtime Chocolate Chip Cookies I made I mentioned that I picked up some other things at my local Target store to create an Easter cake and I am happy to say that the cake turned out just as I pictured it in my head. So, what did I pick up? Edible Easter Grass, Cadbury Mini Easter Eggs and Chocolate Bunny.

To begin, I baked my favorite Carrot Cake and frosted it with Cream Cheese Frosting.

The Edible Easter Grass, if you’re wondering, is made of wafer paper candy. It has a slight green apple flavor and surprisingly doesn’t have an after-taste. And from what I read about it online, most of the companies that sell it here in the United States import it from Germany.

I cut the grass into 1 to 2 inch pieces and spread it onto a cookie sheet. I then misted the grass with a littel water and mixed the grass so that it could clump together. I was careful not to use too much water because the grass would then disintegrate.

I first placed the chocolate bunny in the center of the cake and then started spreading the grass around the bunny lightly pressing it into the frosting.

I decided to only cover the top of the cake with the grass.

And after placing some Cadbury milk eggs in the grass my cake was decorated and ready for Easter!

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend. Ideally I would have liked to get this post up yesterday, but time got away from me. Since it is Easter Monday though, I’m not all that late.

I had decided a while back that I wanted to make decorated Easter cookies for the holiday (the decision was easily made after I got this egg cookie cutter from my local craft store.)

As opposed to Valentine’s Day when I used a package mix to make my decorated cookies, this time I was determined to make them from scratch. (While I do enjoy making things from scratch, rolled out cookies are among my least favorite things to make since I inevitably roll them out too thin or too thick which can lead to the baking time to be off which can then lead to a cookie that is inedible. Maybe it’s time to invest in some rolling pin rings.)

I opted to use the Roll-Out Cookie recipe on the back of the cookie cutter packaging since it didn’t require the dough to be refrigerated prior to rolling (I’m all about saving time whenever possible.)

To begin I mixed the flour, baking powder and salt in one bowl.

In the bowl of my stand mixer I beat together butter and sugar until it was light and fluffy and then added in vanilla and almond extracts and an egg.

I then incorporated the flour mixture into the butter mixture one cup at a time, mixing well after each addition.

It wasn’t long before the dough came together, which I then divided into two balls in preparation for rolling.

Once I rolled out my first ball and cut out the cookies I placed them on an ungreased cookie sheet and sprinkled them with Easter themed sprinkles. After baking for about ten minutes in a 350 F preheated oven they were done.

I baked my second batch without sprinkles since I was planning on decorating them with royal icing.

Once the cookies cooled completely I whipped up a small batch of royal icing.

And after some dyeing, dotting and sprinkling my cookies were done.

Along with Easter Egg Cookies I decided to make some actual Easter eggs. I haven’t dyed eggs in quite some time, but after seeing the directions for marbled eggs in a few different magazines this past month I decided I had to try it.

And this is what I ended up with. I really liked how the inside of the shell looked more than anything.

And if you’re curious about Easter Eggs and some fun facts about them check out this article that was in the USA Weekend newspaper magazine this past weekend. Here are a few of my favorites…

-Before those little dissolvable capsules, egg dyes were made from a variety of materials, including onion peels, tree bark, flower petals, and vegetable and fruit juices.

-The PAAS Dye Co. launched its popular product in the 1880s in Newark, N.J. The first packets contained five colors for 5 cents. The company now claims to sell more than 10 million kits annually (no longer just dyes, but also paints, stickers, glitter and more) and says that consumers use them to decorate 180 million eggs.

-Many Easter eggs aren’t actually eggs but are formed from chocolate. In Scotland, a popular treat sold in fish-and-chips shops is deep-fried chocolate eggs.

-“Easter eggs” are found in numerous videogames and movies. That’s a term for an inside joke or hidden message planted by the creator. The term was coined at Atari after a programmer put his name in a hidden room in the game Adventure, released in 1979.

Roll-Out Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoons almond extract

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In mixing bowl, beat butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and extracts. Mix flour, baking powder and salt; add to butter mixture 1 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. Do not chill dough. Divide dough into 2 balls.

On a floured surface, roll each ball into a circle approximately 12 in. wide and 1/8 in. thick. Dip cookie cutter in flour before each use. Bake cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet 8-11 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.