Egg Experimentation

Son #3 is into the "what did they do in olden times?" phase right now.  he question came up how did "olden times people" color Easter eggs?  Well after some investigation we came up with some foods to use for colors.  Here are the results:

For the blue eggs we chopped a head of red cabbage and boiled it until the pigment came out of the leaves. 

At this point #3 headed out the door.  This was taking too long for a nine year old boy - especially on one of the first nice days of the year. 

I added in some vinegar and salt and let the eggs set in the frig for a couple of hours to get the robin egg blue.

For the pink eggs I wised up and used the juice from canned beets.  We added in some vinegar and salts and ended up with some pretty pastel pink eggs. 

For the yellow eggs I went way out on a limb and tried turmeric.  To start with my house now smells like an Indian restaurant.  That isn't necessarily a bad thing but it's something that son #1 does care for and the house is being aired out as I type. 

This is a concoction of water, 4 tablespoons of turmeric, salt and vinegar.  It only took about 15 minutes to end up with a yellow egg.

I was going to do a coffee/vinegar/salt blend for a brown egg but decided to just stick with the hens' al-natural brown and not mess with Mother Nature. 

This was a good experiment but both #3 and I decided that we will stick with store bought food coloring because it is MUCH faster. 

Happy Easter!