For all my curiosity as a child, I am beginning to think I was pretty unconcerned about some obvious inconsistencies with holiday traditions.
I must have been a curious child. First, I grew up to be a journalist, which means I question most everything and never hesitated to ask, “Why?” Second, my mother’s favorite answer to me was often: “Curiosity killed the cat.”
It never occurred to me, however, to ask why a bunny brought you eggs at Easter. Did he raid the chicken house? Why eggs and not chocolate carrots? And if it needed to be eggs, why was there not an Easter Chicken? How did the bunny get the gig?
Inconsistencies notwithstanding, I have always loved dyeing Easter Eggs. I kept up the tradition long after my children were gone, telling myself I needed something to put in the ceramic basket my Aunt Skeet made me that I used as my table centerpiece each spring. I finally gave it up because, well, it’s messy, and you can only eat so much egg salad.
I think I am bringing back the tradition this year. I want to try out my newly-discovered way to do my favorite type of colored eggs: Marbleized.
It fits that I love marbleized eggs. I am of the tie-dye generation. I have marbleized eggs before, using the drop-of-oil in the water method, but mine always just looked splotchy. This whipping cream/shaving cream method, however, has me intrigued.
Here’s the way to do it. You can use shaving cream or whipping cream, and the instructions are clear to say to use whipping cream if you are going to eat the eggs.
What You Need:
• Bowl of vinegar
• Shallow pans
• Shaving cream or whipped cream
• Food coloring
• Bamboo skewers
• Rubber gloves
• Hard-boiled eggs
• Paper towels
• Bowl of water
After the eggs have cooked and cooled, place them in a large bowl of vinegar and soak for 20 minutes. This helps the dye adhere to the shells.
While they are soaking, fill one or more shallow baking sheets with shaving cream. Cover the bottom of the pan and keep adding until the layer is about an inch thick. Smooth it out like cake frosting.
Generously squirt drops of food coloring on top of the shaving cream, using two colors for each dyeing pool. If you are using a large pan, you can divide it in half and create two pools.
Take the skewers and drag them through the food coloring, swirling them together.
Put on the plastic gloves and place an egg in the shaving cream pool. Roll it around in the goop until it completely coats the egg’s shell.
Place the egg on a paper towel and let it dry there for 20 minutes. DO NOT WIPE off the excess shaving cream.
After 20 minutes, carefully dip each egg into a bowl of water. The water will remove the excess shaving cream. Pat each egg dry with a paper towel.
If you had an aunt who got into the ceramic craze in the 1970s, dust off your Easter basket and fill it with your marbleized eggs!