Introduction: Marbleized Easter Eggs

About: I love to spend time in the kitchen to relax and feed those I love with great eats and treats.

I love the look of marbleized eggs! They look somewhat complicated, but couldn't be easier, it's great fun to do with kids, I've been making them since I had to stand on a stool to reach the counter, and three decades later I still enjoy it.

We used to buy the marbleizing kits, but I learned this method from Martha Stewart Living, March 2005 issue, using items already in my pantry. I think the neon food coloring I used worked really well with the pastel bases of the dyed eggs, but you can use whatever food coloring you like.

If you've used a dye kit to dye the base color of your eggs, all you need are: water, liquid food coloring, vinegar, and olive oil, along with your imagination, to create the marbleized eggs. If you blow out, and dry out, the eggs you can even save these to enjoy for years.

Time to channel your inner Jackson Pollock and get to marbleizing!

Step 1: Gather Ingredients

You'll need:

Newspaper to cover countertops

Optional crayon for writing on eggs before dying

Hard-boiled eggs dyed a light shade

For each marble bath:

9-inch pie plate (or other low shallow bowl)

2 cups warm water (or enough to have 1/2-inch of water in the bowl)

1 Tbsp. distilled white vinegar

15-20 drops food coloring (I used Neon colors)

1 Tbsp. olive oil

Step 2: Make Marbleizing Bath

Let your dyed eggs dry on paper towels while you prepare marbleizing baths. Keep the base shades light so they can take on the darker colors when marbleing (I only kept them in the dye about a minute).

Pour warm water into a pie plate. Add the distilled white vinegar and stir to combine. Add 15-20 drops of food coloring and stir well. If you want a deeper color, add more drops. Add 1 Tbsp. olive oil and use a fork to disperse the oil over the water. The oil sits on the surface in different spots and creates the marbleized effect.

Take an egg and set it in the pie plate, using your fingers (gloved if worried about stains), or a fork, quickly roll the egg around, making sure to move it through the oil patches, and all around the plate.

Step 3: Try Different Colors

Try various color combinations. Vary the base tints and the swirls to achieve contrasts both striking and subtle.

For this batch, I used 10 drops purple food coloring, and 10 drops pink. Since the ingredients for this are fairly cheap, let your imagination run wild, this is also a great way to pull out a color wheel and teach your children how to mix colors and watch what happens!

I wouldn't go too crazy, or you'll probably end up with a lot of brownish eggs. Stick with one or two colors in the marbleizing bath, and drop in different colors of dyed eggs. You can even try to put the eggs in multiple marbleizing baths.

Step 4: Enjoy Your Eggs

Remove each egg and dry it well with a paper towel, wiping off the excess oil, let the eggs dry on a double stack of paper towels about 30 minutes.

Show off your eggs in a pretty display, just remember not to keep them out of the fridge longer than 2 hours at a time. I love the sheen the oil gives to each egg.

Happy Easter, enjoy!

You can keep these hard-boiled eggs, in their shells, up to five days in the refrigerator, then it's time for deviled eggs and egg salad.

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