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How-to: Blow Out Easter Eggs

April 11, 2011 1 Comment

Blowing out Easter eggs is easy. These instructions are from my mom, who made a set of blown out eggs when I was a kid. Maybe it was to preserve our amazing decorations for years, but more likely it was so the house didn’t stink if we couldn’t find all of her hidden eggs. Brace yourself for heightened salmonella awareness and a surprisingly easy how-to!

Supplies

eggs, egg carton
pins/needles in varying widths
sink with drain
1 tbsp vinegar
cooking pot
wooden spoon
squirt bottle

Directions

Work this project over a sink  with a drain, but remember to plug it first! I accidentally lost a pin down my garbage disposal, and the husband wasn’t super psyched about having to dig around in egg waste for something sharp.

To start, gently tap your thinnest needle in to your egg, piercing the shell. I used a kitchen knife rather than any kind of hammer because it exerts less force and will help reduce the risk of smashing your eggs.

Take your next-thickest needle, and tap it in to the existing hole to make it larger. Repeat with your next-thickest needle. Once the opening is ready, grab a long needle and poke around inside your egg to pierce the yolk and separate the egg’s proteins. This will help you when you blow out the egg’s insides.

Poke a second hole in the opposite end of your egg. Make this one slightly larger than the first hole – this will be the end egg guts come out of. The bigger the hole, the faster this will go. Don’t worry about finding really thick needles to make the second hole. Make a small hole just like the first, but increase its size by chipping away at it from the inside with one of your pins.

Time to blow! Turning the larger hole toward the sink, blow in to the smaller one (see my lovely double-chinned face demoing this action above). I blew out about 14 eggs to yesterday, and their guts pretty much all came out in this order: clear, boogery gunk; liquid egg white; thicker cream-colored gunk; yolk. When you pass the first thick gunk and then the second thick cream-colored stuff, it’s all easy.

If your eggs are strictly for dyeing, you might want to consider keeping both openings as small as possible, but I’ll warn you. It will take substantially longer to blow out the guts, but they’ll look a lot more like real, unadulterated eggs if the holes are subtle.

The last step in the hollow eggs creation process, if you want to fill them with candy or chocolate, is to sanitize the shells. Salmonella may only kill a couple dozen people a year, but y’know, safety.

Submerge your hollow eggs in a mixture of 1 tablespoon vinegar and cold water. The eggs will float unless their openings are huge, OR you fill the eggs with cold water using a squirting device. Michael’s craft stores carry a bunch of candy-making supplies, including squirt-bottles.

Bring your pot of eggs to a boil and remove from heat. There will be some foam on the top that can be thrown away. Let the whole mess cool and blow out excess water from eggs. If you’re impatient like me, you can carefully remove each egg from the boiling water and carefully let the water drain down a partially plugged sink. In retrospect, I’m going to admit the impatient method isn’t totally worth it – I may have burned my face/lips and hands doing this. Let eggs dry overnight in carton.

Filed Under: Baking, Easter, How-to Tagged With: blown eggs, easter, eggs, How-to

About Heidi

Heidi Gustad is a craft book author, designer & creator specializing in yarn crafts like knitting, crochet, latch hook & macramé. Her first book, Latch Hook: 12 Projects for the Modern Maker, is out now.

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Comments

  1. Caroline Sanders

    April 20, 2013 at 10:01 am

    Much easier to blow out the eggs using a nasal aspirator ( aka snot sucker). If you shake the egg up before blowing it out, it is also immensely easier.

    Reply

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Heidi Gustad from Hands Occupied / Craft Book Author and Knitting, Crochet, Latch Hook and Macrame Designer

Hi! I’m Heidi (she/her/hers), a craft book author & pattern designer specializing in knitting, crochet, latch hook & macrame. Really anything with yarn! ❤️  My work combines vintage and modern design elements, featuring bold colors and graphic motifs.

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Finally organizing & putting the finishing touches Finally organizing & putting the finishing touches on my home studio. After losing my studio space last fall, it’s feels really great to *occupy* this new space all the way. 😉
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I started by removing general clutter & returning straggler supplies from various WIPs, videos & design deadlines to their homes. Next, I hung a third peg board in the space - this one is mostly for display and less for organizing tools or projects. For the first time ever, I’m displaying projects from my book, plus a couple other faves. (The best thing about designing more yarn crafts besides knit & crochet is that I have some really fun -and delightfully pettable 😆- samples around.) I finished by adding a square dowel to my small supply storage tower to keep it from tipping over, plus re-arranging and de-cluttering the closet. 
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This cleaner space already has me feeling so much more creative and less overwhelmed. Now to find a safe spot in the basement for the tower of project samples in Rubbermaid tubs I liberated from my WIPs closet. Also why are there five?! 
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Here’s to keeping it clean for a few weeks! 🧶 
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It’s a disaster in here and my video microphone It’s a disaster in here and my video microphone isn’t cooperating, but it could be worse! How’s your day? 
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(If we haven’t yet met, I’m Heidi and I’m a pattern designer and tutorial creator specializing in yarn crafts like knitting & latch hook. You can learn more about my work and regularly find new tutorials in my profile. ☺️👋🏻)
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How to knit a one-row buttonhole 🧶 . Sweater k How to knit a one-row buttonhole 🧶 
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Sweater knitters, listen up! Learn how to knit a buttonhole over the course of a single row of knitting, a.k.a. a one-row buttonhole. In this technique, a combination of binding off and casting on stitches on opposite sides of the work creates a symmetrical, stretchy buttonhole. 
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The time limit on these is 90 seconds, so this quick tutorial is perfect to save for future reference. (Did you know you can make folders of saved items like tutorials? 👩🏼‍🏫) 
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If you’re brand new to the technique or want to see this demonstration slower and more in-depth, my bl0g and You/2be are the place to be. Thanks for watching & let me know if you have any questions or requests for future tutorials in the comments. ☺️
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One-row buttonholes are one of a few common ways t One-row buttonholes are one of a few common ways to knit a buttonhole. Created using a combination of binding off and casting on stitches over the course of a single row, this technique is one you’ll come back to again and again, and bonus: it’s not wildly challenging. 
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Find a brand new video tutorial for knitting one-row buttonholes and a post with other useful buttonhole resources on the bl0g, 🔗 in bi0.
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It was quiet last week as I’ve been working on a It was quiet last week as I’ve been working on a few behind the scenes projects, including filming a bunch. The goal: tutorials most weeks!
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I also put some time into neglected design projects, in particular the pattern collection I began working on back in 2022. As I work on the samples, you’ll be seeing some sneak peeks here and there in my feed. ☺️
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The other thing occupying my time: I got an iPad to try digital planning and keep my design notes more organized, not to mention digitized. (Paper scribbling just ain’t it after 12 years.) If anyone has tips for how to make the most of digital planning as a crafter / knitter, I’d love to hear them! Accounts to follow, apps, must-know hacks for crafters - I’m excited to learn it all! 👩🏼‍🏫
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