I’m not going to lie – I have always hated dying Easter eggs. Those pathetic kits you can buy at Target with the little tablets never really work very well and definitely don’t turn out anything like what you see on the box.
This year, I thought, “what the fuck, if we’re going to do it, let’s try something really fancy.” After searching Pinterest, I found this how-to guide from Better Homes & Gardens (with video) for creating marble eggs with standard food coloring, water, vinegar and vegetable cooking oil.
And I’m so glad I did! It was super easy, way faster than I expected, not really very messy and the results are FABULOUS! Plus, I already had all the ingredients in my pantry.
It really only takes four ingredients, not counting the hard-boiled eggs and wine. Plus a shit-ton of paper towels.
Step 1: Pour yourself a glass of wine. And put on some plastic gloves, otherwise you’re going to end up with dark brown fingertips. You probably still will either way, but this will at least minimize the chances.
Step 2: Create your base colors. Mix one cup of hot water, one teaspoon of white vinegar and about 10 drops of food coloring. I used basic McCormick’s food coloring that comes in a four-pack of blue, red, green and yellow. This is the base color for the eggs, so you don’t want it to be too dark – except the yellow. The next time I do it, I’m probably going to skip red as a base color because those were all my least favorite eggs, regardless of color combination. I might mix the blue and green to make a really pretty aqua instead — extra fancy!
The original directions said to do it in glass bowls, but I used leftover red Solo cups from our Christmas party, which did the job perfectly. Now you just put the eggs into the cups one at a time and leave them there for about a minute (make sure they’re all the way under the water) to get a light shade. Take them out and place on a paper towel to dry. They need to be completely dry before dipping again.
Step 3: Make the Marble Mixture: Mix a cup of warm water, about 25 drops of food coloring (make it really saturated!) and a tablespoon of vegetable oil for each color. I did this in glass pie pans, but a shallow/wide bowl would do just fine. Just know that it might stain!
Step 4: Get To Marbling! Once your eggs are dry, use a spoon to add the colored eggs, one-at-a-time, to the vegetable oil mix. Gently roll it around and remove it when you start to see a marbled effect. If you leave it in there too long, you’re just going to end up with a solid-colored egg that looks like shit and completely defeats the point of marbling. After you do each egg, gently pat it dry with a paper towel and let dry.
Step 5: Post photos of your masterpieces to Instagram to make all your friends envious of your creative talents!
Here’s a quick video from Better Homes & Gardens that demonstrates how they did it:
