The Best Easter Eggs Ever – Pink Saturday

Growing up I always felt sorry for my friends who got hardboiled eggs from the Easter Bunny. What in the world could you do with a hardboiled egg after you found it? My eggs were just as colorful as their eggs, and they came filled with candy. Sometimes there was even a quarter inside.

My family has always made Easter Eggs this way. Starting several weeks before Easter, my mother would begin saving the egg shells as she used eggs in cooking. She would carefully tap the small end of the egg on the countertop and break out a hole a little larger than a quarter.

Then she would rinse the egg and store it in an empty egg carton.

A few days before Easter is a good time to dye the empty egg shells. I don’t remember what brand of Easter egg dye we used back in the day, but I like to use PAAS. I just follow the instructions on the PAAS package and soon I have bright colorful egg shells.

Once the eggs are the shade I want them, I stand them on the open end and let them drain onto paper towels until the outsides are dry to the touch. Then I put them back into the egg carton so that the inside dries out completely. Here’s Brent working on some Easter eggs on our porch back in the early '90’s. I tried to dye my eggs on my screened porch this year, but it was too windy, so I had to work inside on the island in the kitchen.

Now comes the fun part. You can fill your eggs with any kind of candy you like, but we have found that the ideal Easter egg mix is M&M’s, candy corn and Planters Spanish Peanuts. These are the small salted peanuts with the red skin on them. What’s really good is if the Easter Bunny hides the eggs outside early in the morning. There’s something about the dew on the grass that helps to blend the sweet and salty flavors.

Once the eggs are stuffed, I close the open end with a crepe paper flute or some colorful Easter grass like the PINK grass I used this year because, would you believe, Michael’s did not have crepe paper.

These eggs are all going into Ben’s Easter basket that I painted back in 1988. He and Claire will meet us in Memphis for church and lunch. I hope he’ll enjoy his Easter egg dessert.

On this PINK SATURDAY please visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound to see what others have to share.