I absolutely love Easter. To me, Easter always signals the beginning of Spring, although Spring actually has technically already started, and makes me remember fondly all those years when my older brother and I would decorate eggs and eat entirely too much chocolate to sit still at church service.
While I enjoy hard boiled eggs and the traditional dying method as much as anyone, my favorite way to decorate eggs is to blow the yoke out first, and then decorate. Not only do you have these beautiful keepsakes to decorate, but you can really take your time and be crafty with them as the eggs aren’t going to spoil. The options are endless, and I’ve seen some absolutely beautiful eggs decorated once the yoke is gone and nothing but the crisp clean shell remains!
Here are some tips and steps for making your own blown-out eggs:
- Make sure the egg is at room temperature
- Pierce a hole in each end of the egg. A pushpin works to start, but you’ll want to widen it with a toothpick or clean nail. Putting tape over the area to pierce may help keep the shell intact.
- Make sure the larger side of the egg has a slightly larger hole
- Poke inside the egg with a utensil (needle, wire, paperclip, toothpick) to break up the yoke
- Place a small straw in the larger hole
- Lean over a clean bowl and blow gently into the egg until the yoke comes out the other end! You can also use a syringe or an ‘egg blower’ although I find a straw works just fine
- Put your empty eggshell over the sink and pour a glass of water over it clean it out
- Dry the eggshell. Some sites suggest microwaving the eggshell on high for 30 seconds or baking them at 300 for 10 minutes, but we always just let ours air dry
- Decorate to your heart’s content!
Keep in mind that if you clean all your tools right, you can still reuse the egg whites and yolks in scrambled eggs, omlettes or some other form of baking. Don’t let it go to waste!
How do you decorate your eggs? Let me know in the comments!
I have a collection of blown out eggs that my mother hand painted as Christmas ornaments. They have Christmas theme images on two sides with a velvet ribbon going around the two ends to hide the holes and provide a way to hang them on a small table top tree. I love the eggs, and only two have broken in the last twenty years of gentle use. – Margy
Great step by step instructions. Do you use fresh farm eggs or store bought older eggs?
Hi Andrea! Thanks for reading!! In answer to your question, I’ve really only used store bought eggs as farm eggs tend to disappear at my house! However, I imagine that farm fresh eggs would work just the same.