Dyeing eggs with natural colors

I realize it's a little early for Easter, but I experimented with natural dyes for eggs this weekend because I'd like to serve them as part of a medieval lunch for an Society for Creative Anachronism (www.sca.org) event next month.

I’m very excited about the eggs because the dyes actually worked, contrary to the experiences of many online contributors I've read.



The lighter pink circles are where the egg (being too fresh) was sticking out of the water, and the marks that look like scratches on the yellow and blue eggs come from bits of cabbage or from the spoon I scooped them out of the dye with. The colors in the photo are very true to how they look in real life.

I followed (more or less) some recipes I found online.
http://chemistry.about.com/od/holidayhowtos/a/eastereggdyes.htm
http://whatscookingamerica.net/Eggs/EasterEggDye.htm

I think the most important bits of the instructions I followed were:
1. wash the eggs first in soapy water to remove any oils from the eggshell.
2. use a lot of dyestuff: I used a little over half a small head of red cabbage for blue eggs, 2 or 3 Tbsp turmeric for yellow eggs and 2 cups of juice from beet pickles for pink eggs (plus a little water to make sure the eggs were covered). I didn’t dye as many eggs as could have fit in the pot, but I figure this would be enough for a pot of a dozen eggs of each color.
3. add white vinegar to the dye bath. I just kind of guessed and probably poured in 2 Tbsp or so in each bath.
4. leave the eggs in the dyestuff overnight in the refrigerator.

I also added the instruction myself of cooking the eggs right in the dye bath, since you’d have to cook the dyes anyway. We'll see at my tasting party Monday whether the eggs taste like the dyestuff. Next time I would make sure to strain out all the cabbage because I think cabbage bits stuck to the eggs and prevented them from dyeing uniformly.

Next step, presentation. I know plastic Easter basket grass didn't exist prior to 1600, and since I want people to eat them, the eggs also won't be served in baskets full of lawn grass. Something easy would be a brightly-colored cloth in a basket or bowl framing a pile of eggs. Less easy but pretty would be gathering up nontoxic flowers and using them as the "grass" in a basket. I have this vision of little origami packages to hold salt and pepper to dip the eggs in, but I don't know what shape to make.