Onion Skin Red Egg Dye

 I just realized the blog where I originally got my onion skin dye instructions is no more! Fortunately, I saved the instructions and will share them here for posterity with thanks to the Williams Family. 

Yellow Onion Skins Method 

Originally from: http://williamsfamilyadventure.blogspot.com/2011/04/blood-red-easter-eggs.html My additions in brackets.

Gather lots of yellow onion skins. [I actually keep a grocery sack in my pantry and collect them all year. Leave the sack open so they dry out and don't get moldy. If you don't have enough, buy a sack of onions and take all the skins off! That should be enough.] 

During Holy Week, a few days before Pascha [on Holy Thursday between morning Liturgy and evening Passion Gospels], stuff them into a pot and pour about 1.5 liters (or quarts - they are the same, pretty much) of water over them, plus one tablespoon of vinegar per cup of water. That is 4 tablespoons (or 1/4 cup) for a liter. I use white or pale vinegar. [Don't overdo the vinegar! It will break down the egg shell and make them look bad.]

It is important for all the onion skins to be submerged, but, at the same time, you don't want to dilute the dye by using too much water. So squish down the onion skins with a weighted plate. Bring this to a boil and then simmer for about a half hour. If, say, I had less than the desired about of onion skins, I might keep on simmering for longer, to extract as much color as possible from the skins. But, like I said, I usually have more than enough onion skins, so a half hour is enough to produce a deeply colored dye.

Cook the eggs at the same time as dying them. [I think you can take the skins out now, but I also think I've done it both ways.] If you want, you can hard-boil the eggs first, and then dye them (I don't know how much longer the dyeing would take without the heat, but probably not a significant amount of time). Certainly, that would be the way to go if you draw or write on them with wax before the dying process (to leave an imprint in the dye). Otherwise, the wax would melt off into the dye. 

My concluding remarks:

I usually make 40-50 eggs for our little parish, and the concern is to dye them without cracking. You can't pile them up or let the water boil too rapidly without risking cracking. I usually boil a single layer (12 or so) in the low-boiling dye for 8-10 minutes, repeating until I have enough.

One year I had a full gallon size bag of onion skins and doubled the recipe to make a very full pot. I don't think this is necessary since I don't like to layer the eggs while dying/cooking. Fewer skins will still go a long way. 

Someone told me to polish them with olive oil to make them pretty and shiny, and I like to do that. 

I keep them in a basket in the fridge until Holy Saturday morning, when I take them to the church and leave them in the fridge for the evening service. This natural dye won't bleed, if if they sweat in the fridge. Toward the end of the Liturgy I step out to get them and put them by the solea or take to an altar boy.