3 Mix 1/2 cup boiling water, 1 teaspoon vinegar and 10 to 20 drops food color in a cup to achieve desired colors. Repeat for each color. Dip hard-cooked eggs in dye for about 5 minutes.
Soak your hard boiled eggs in vinegar for 5-10 minutes. The vinegar is essential in helping the colors adhere to the shell. You can skip this step but your colors will be more muted.
Vinegar is acidic and contains around 3% acetic acid. When you add vinegar to water, it creates ideal conditions for food coloring to dye the egg. Since eggs are made out of calcium carbonate, this calcium in the shell reacts with the acid in the vinegar to make carbon dioxide.
3. You should use warm or hot water. You can't just mix the food coloring or egg dye with water at any temperature. Warm water helps the dye to absorb better than cooler water.
So, if you want to make vibrant Easter eggs, it's best to use white vinegar. While you can use apple cider vinegar, the color of the vinegar will have an impact on the final color of your Easter egg. Using apple cider vinegar won't give you bright, vibrant colors.
Dyeing Eggs
Mix one teaspoon of vinegar and 20 drops of food coloring (use more to intensify color) in one cup of hot water in a heatproof bowl, cup, or jar deep enough to let you submerge an egg completely. To create different tints, vary the dipping time. Use tongs to make handling the eggs easy.
You will need: Hard-boiled eggs. Vinegar (white or apple cider) Food coloring.
Use cool hard boiled eggs. 3. Fill container with enough water to cover the egg, one teaspoon of white vinegar, and about 20 drops of food coloring.
3 Add Boiling Water
Let your eggs come to room temperature before dying! I like to cook mine and then let them cool so I can dye the same day. Avoid refrigerating them before you dye them.
Immerse eggs in dye, turning occasionally to ensure even coating, until desired color, about 5 minutes. Using slotted spoon or tongs, remove eggs from dye and transfer to rack to drain. Refrigerate when dry.
If you soak an egg in vinegar the eggshell will absorb the acid and break down, or dissolve. The calcium carbonate will become carbon dioxide gas, which will go into the air. What is left is the soft tissue that lined the inside of the eggshell. It will bounce!
Boiling the water before you begin dying will help you mix everything together smoother. Put the hot water in a small bowl and add 3 tsp of white vinegar to it. Once the water has cooled and the dye has mixed you can begin to dye your eggs!
Use HOT water. Even though most food dyes work with cold or warm water, you will get deeper, brighter colors when using hot water. The hotter the water, the less time it will take to color your egg.
It can take 12-24 hours before a good portion of the shell is removed. A good sign of progress is a white frothy scummy layer on the top of the surface of the vinegar. After a day of soaking you can carefully remove the egg from the vinegar.
The fact is, raw eggs take dye just as well as hard-boiled eggs do. So now I skip the cooking-and-cooling prep work and dip raw eggs into the dye bath instead. The raw eggs come out with the same beautiful colors but none of the unsightly cracks that are often a byproduct of boiling the eggs.
Place a small piece of tape on the top (the pointy thick end) of the egg and the bottom (the fatter end) of the egg. Using a needle, poke a hole in the top of the egg through the tape. Hold the egg over the bowl to catch any of the liquid that drips out; do the same with the bottom of the egg.
Paint and store: Once you've finished dyeing each egg, put them right back in the refrigerator so the eggs stay cool. A few at a time: If you're dyeing lots of eggs, work on smaller batches of 4-5 or so at a time, then get them right back into the refrigerator.
A common question this time of year: Is it safe to leave Easter eggs out overnight? The answer is no. Food safety experts at the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services say if you plan to eat the eggs after decorating, do not leave them out of refrigeration for more than two hours.
Place egg in the dye and allow to set. The longer you leave it in the container, the richer the color will be. You can even choose to leave them for hours or overnight if you want a darker, more vibrant egg.
Place a single layer of eggs in a saucepan. Add cold water to come at least 1 inch above the eggs. Cover and bring the water to a boil; turn off the heat. Let the eggs stand covered in the hot water for 15 minutes for large eggs, 12 minutes for medium, and 18 minutes for extra large.
If you are treating your dyed eggs just like normal hard-boiled eggs, putting them in the fridge after dyeing and then using them for egg salad, you're good to go. Hard-boiled eggs stay fresh in the shell for about a week in the fridge, so make sure you eat them within that time frame.
You can make a brighter egg dye solution by dissolving the egg dye tablets into distilled white vinegar instead. Pour one cup of vinegar into a container with one egg dye tablet. Stir the solution with a spoon to dissolve the tablet completely before use.
If the risk of sweating is high, pre-warm eggs gradually at least six hours prior to removing them from the egg storage room. This is achieved by switching off the egg room cooler several hours before taking out the eggs.
Directions. First, bring 8 cups of water, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1/4 cup of rice vinegar to a rolling boil. Then, using a spoon, carefully place about 8 large eggs into the water. Turn the heat down slightly and let boil for 14 minutes.