A few months ago I was totally wasting time avoiding piles of laundry and dishes browsing Tastespotting for official food blog research purposes when my then 4 year old son walked into my office. He took one look at the computer screen and exclaimed, “Mom! Is that a dinosaur egg??!” What he had spied was actually a Chinese Tea Egg. When brined in a mix of tea, and spices the crackly designs look (to me) like something you’d see on a Halloween themed table, but I took a mental note to make these with fun colors when Easter came around and we could pretend they were Dinosaur eggs. My boys thought they were SO cool.
First thing you need is a bunch of hard boiled eggs. Click here for a how-to on boiling the perfect egg!
After the eggs are cooked, cooled, and dry, gently tap them on the counter top. You want to create little cracks all over the egg. It’s okay if a few small pieces of shell fall off, but try to avoid breaking large chunks off.
You should just have small tiny cracks all over. In fact after you make a few taps on the counter, you can even gently squeeze the egg in your hand to crack the shell.
Use liquid food coloring to tint your water, and plop your eggs in.
For some reason, my Ikea kids cups are always my egg-dying cups. We wanted a few different colors so we put a single egg in each cup. This part isn’t rocket science. No specific measurements, just, ya know…do it. I let my kids squeeze in the food coloring so I’m guessing there are about 847 drops in each cup. If you want to be exact.
Let them sit in the fridge for several hours, or overnight. I’ve actually only let them sit overnight, so I can’t tell you how many hours will do it if you don’t leave them in all night. Somehow that makes it more fun too. My kids get all excited to wake up in the morning and crack their eggs open.
Remove the eggs from the water, rinse them off (so you don’t color your hands, um, not that I’ve done that…) and gently remove the shells, revealing the dino designs inside!
Isn’t it strange how that one egg shell didn’t absorb any color but the inside is colored?? Weirdness. Also I have no idea how those other ones have lines around them.
That red one freaked my husband out. He said it looked “veiny”. Can’t say I disagree.
He then promptly mocked my egg-to-dinosaur size ratio in the lovely diorama I set up on our back porch. Whatever. Maybe they’re all just hanging around wondering where the ginormous dinosaur is that produced an egg bigger than all of them. Use your imagination people!
Pretty sure this purple one is my favorite. I have shoes that color. Love.
They’re sort of weird and awesome all at the same time. Like me.
Emphasis on the awesome.
Now you’re probably wondering what to do with a bunch of neon eggs.
Why, have a dinosaur egg salad sandwich of course!
Here’s my favorite recipe for Egg Salad. I had to close my eyes before taking a bite because the technicolor factor tripped me out, but my kids sure thought it was rad. And that of course was the whole point, so plus one for Team Mom. Woot woot! So try this one with the kiddos – they’ll be excited when you’re in the middle of egg dying and you tell them to crack the eggs. Or better yet, crack some and don’t tell them- wouldn’t that be a fun surprise?!
Questions & Reviews
My little two year old LOVES dinosaurs and he found this post while we were looking at what cookies we were just going to bake. He has been scrolling through admiring the dinosaurs and eggs for a while now. Guess we will have to make “dinosaur eggs” after our cookies are done, haha!
Love these. I have my eggs boiling now. The boys and I are making these tonight for fun colored deviled eggs to take for Easter dinner tomorrow night. 🙂
We have a Spiderman egg kit. A few of these in the mix will look like “Spidey” has been there. Thanks!
Our favorite thing to do with Easter Eggs (after the hunt on Easter morning) is to make creamed eggs! Favorite Easter tradition, especially if we crack the eggs a bit to let the dye in (like Dino Eggs). Just make a thin to medium white sauce and then put the cut up hard boiled eggs in it. Serve over toast. So festive and so YUMMY!
So cute- just boiling my eggs now for deviled dinosaur eggs
Thanks Sara, it was great idea, I read it today and made them today. My three year old took them to nursery today, he was very happy. I made little change to it, after slightly cracking the egg, boiled the egg again in coloured water in a small pan (individually). Take it out rinse under the clod water and peel it as you desire (fully or half) for same perfect and quick results. TIP: – you can use same egg-dying cups, add some dye and hot water and boil the egg in Micro wave oven for one minute leave it stand for few minutes rinse and peel, make sure cups are Microwave able.
Very cool. I have made these before, but not on purpose… Good to know I wasn’t being clumsy…just artistic!
And I just reread the original post and realized you actually mention tea eggs, whoops.
This is similar (in final appearance, at least) to a dish in Chinese cuisine called Tea Eggs — basically, you par-boil some eggs, crack the shells as you do here, cool, then bring a pot of water with a few tablespoons of loose black tea (or tea bags if that’s all you have), half a cup of soy sauce, and your choice of spices (whole spices work best, there’s a lot of leeway but something like star anise, cinnamon stick, and some allspice would be a good starting point), then gently simmer the eggs in it for half an hour (you’d think this overlong cooking would make them tough or rubbery, but something about the broth infiltrating through the cracked shell or maybe just the long slow cooking leaves them if anything a little tenderer), after which you let them cool in the pan, then soak overnight in the fridge. They get that same marbling in a faint brown, and are delicious.
Yes, tea eggs were the inspiration!
I just made these for a dinosaur birthday party, thanks for sharing! I linked back to you for your tutorial, hope that’s ok!
http://holidaysnobs.blogspot.com/2011/07/dinosaur-birthday-party-rawr-part-2.html
I tried these and failed miserably! The inside of the eggshell looked cool, but the “membrane” didn’t crack with the shell, so the egg didn’t dye 🙁
And then to add insult to injury, my hubby said I was too old for such shenanigans. phltt.
But it was fun anyway. Hadn’t dyed eggs for years!
Oh you’re never too old for such shenanigans! haha Bummer they didn’t work though, that’s so weird!
Hey, I did this with my 3 yr old son. He loved it. So did I. So I blogged about it and linked to your blog. http://eatnmess.blogspot.com/ Thanks for all the cool tips, activities and recipes. Love them.
Great idea. I teach Mom/Tot classes called Goof & Giggle and one of my Mom’s told me about these dino eggs because our theme this month is “Dizzy Dinosaurs”. Great job girls!
I remember seeing this done as a kid – except they used koolaid for flavored eggs! It seemed so cool then. Now? Ick. :o)
We tried out the dino eggs. I’m afraid we weren’t very successful. I guess we needed more cracks. We are going to give them another try and really go to town on the eggs this time.
I made these yesterday and they were so cute. The part I was looking forward to most was making the colorful egg salad. My girls loved it.
Okay, So I know it’s a little soon. But I made these yesterday afternoon. Just took them out of the fridge and they came out Auhhh-mazzing! I seriously can’t believe how awesome they came out! I did a blog post and told everyone on my facebook to make these awesome Dino Eggs! Ohh and I also made a bacon egg salad sandwich, best things EVER!!
Thanks OBB you ladies rock!
You could make dino dig cupcakes too for your little dino picnic http://jerisesh.blogspot.com/2010/10/book-week-17-dinosaur-romp.html
I saw this and 5 minutes later I had eggs boiling on the stove. These are completely awesome! Not sure the kids are going to be patient enough to wait for them to cool down! I’ve already been told to put them in the freezer lol.
Well, I guess I’m going to have to try these out…my 4 boys will LOVE dinosaur eggs!
I’ve done this with eggs before and put them in potato salad. I think pastel colors in potato salad are pretty, but my husband thinks they are gross. Oh, well, more for me 😉
These are awesome! And so simple! My kids will love them! I also want to try this:http://www.notmartha.org/archives/2010/04/01/easter-surprise-eggs-the-easy-version/
Wish I had known about these when my kids were small! What fun!!!
My son was excited to see these. He thinks they look like dragon skin. @Elaine-They do sometimes get cackle bands. Most often, the eggs push out smoothly, but sometimes my hens give me eggs with bands that allow you to see the uneven rate at which the egg was created.
My favorite Easter tradition is dying eggs with the girls. This bring back great memories.
-Gina-
so cute!
i wish i had great idea’s like that.
your website is my favorite one to look at.
I saw a great idea last year too. Use the cheap wisks from the dollar store. The cheaper kind allows you to move the metal strands of the wisk aside so you can put a hard boiled egg in. Use these to dip the eggs rather than spoons, etc. Makes much less mess and is a lot easier for my kids to color the eggs!
Those are so cool. What a fun idea. I also love the pic of the boys in their dino costumes. So cute!
What a fun idea!
And I can tell you about the white rings around your eggs. The equipment that the eggs roll on to get to the candling station and the carton will polish the surface of the shell just a little. Enough to keep the dye from sticking evenly on the egg.
I can’t wait to do this with the grandkids!! Thank you!!
I was interested to hear about the reason for the white bands on the blue egg. I decorate Ukrainian Easter eggs, and the person who taught me how to do it said she always called them cackle bands (“The hen pushes the egg out a little, then stops and cackles, then continues.”) I think your comment is true but hers made a fun mental picture.