Coloring The Easter Eggs April 19th 2014

Did You Know? - Egg decorating is the art or craft of decorating eggs. It is quite a popular art/craft form because of the attractive, smooth, oval shape of the egg. Any bird egg can be facilitated in this process, but most often the larger and stronger the eggshell is, the more favoured it will be by decorators.

Goose, duck and hens' eggs are usually "blown" - a hole is made in either end and the contents are blown out. The egg is then either carved, dyed, painted, appliqued or otherwise decorated (using a number of different techniques). Egg decoration is particularly popular in Eastern European countries.

Some eggs, like emu or ostrich eggs, are so large and strong that the shells may be carved without breaking. Decorations on emu eggs take advantage of the contrast in colours between the dark green mottled outside of the shell and the shell-underlay. The oldest eggshells, decorated with engraved hatched patterns, are dated for 60 000 years ago and were found at Diepkloof Rock Shelter in South Africa.

Did You Know? - The original PAAS Easter egg dye was invented by an American named William Townley.

Mr. Townley owned a drug store in Newark, New Jersey, where he concocted recipes for home products. In the late 1800s, he came up with a recipe for Easter egg dye tablets that tinted eggs five cheerful colors.

Neighborhood families started buying Townley's Easter Egg Dye packets in 1880 for only five cents and mixed them with water and white vinegar to create the perfect egg dye!

Soon, Mr. Townley realized that he had a wonderful product that other families would like to use to brighten their Easter tradition. He renamed his business the PAAS Dye Company. The name PAAS comes from "Passen," the word that his Pennsylvania Dutch neighbors used for Easter.

Today, Americans purchase more than 10 million PAAS Easter Egg Color Kits during the Easter season, and use them to decorate as many as 180 million eggs!

Now—more than 130 years later—we believe Mr. Townley would be proud of PAAS' perfect colors. The original is still the best!

Tips From Paas -

Hard-cooked, not hard-boiled. Although the cooking water must come to a full boil in this method, the pan is immediately removed from the heat so that the eggs cook gently in the hot water. This produces tender, not rubbery, eggs and minimizes cracking.

Banish the greenish ring. This harmless but unsightly discoloration that sometimes forms around hard-cooked yolks results from a reaction between sulfur in the egg white and iron in the yolk. It occurs when eggs have been cooked for too long or at too high a temperature. Our method – cooking eggs in hot, not boiling, water, then cooling immediately – minimizes this.

Very fresh eggs can be difficult to peel. To ensure easily peeled eggs, buy and refrigerate them a week to 10 days in advance of cooking. This brief "breather" allows the eggs time to take in air, which helps separate the membranes from the shell.
Hard-cooked eggs are easiest to peel right after cooling. Cooling causes the egg to contract slightly in the shell.

To peel a hard-cooked egg: Gently tap egg on countertop until shell is finely crackled all over. Roll egg between hands to loosen shell. Starting peeling at large end, holding egg under cold running water to help ease the shell off.

Storage time: In the shell, hard-cooked eggs can be refrigerated safely up to one week. Refrigerate in their original carton to prevent odor absorption. Once peeled, eggs should be eaten that day.

Food safety precaution: Piercing shells before cooking is not recommended. If not sterile, the piercer or needle can introduce bacteria into the egg. Also, piercing creates hairline cracks in the shell, through which bacteria can enter after cooking.
Never microwave eggs in shells. Steam builds up too quickly inside and eggs are likely to explode.
High altitude cooking: It's almost impossible to hard-cook eggs above 10,000 feet.

Did You Know? - The first production of modern plastic glitter is credited to American cattle farmer and machinist, Henry Ruschmann, based on a patent filled shortly after the end of the Second World War for a mechanism for cross-cutting films as well as other related inventions.

With German glass glitter unavailable due to the war, Ruschmann found a market for scrap material ground into glitter made of plastics.

He founded Meadowbrook Inventions, Inc. in Bernardsville, New Jersey, and the company is still a producer of industrial glitter today.

Today over 20,000 varieties of glitter are manufactured in a vast number of different colors, sizes, and materials.

Over 10,000,000 pounds (4,500,000 kg) of glitter was purchased between the years of 1989 and 2009 alone. Commercial glitter ranges in size from 0.002 square inches (1.3 mm2) to 0.25 square inches (160 mm2).

First, flat multi-layered sheets are produced combining plastic, coloring, and reflective material such as aluminum, titanium dioxide, iron oxide, and bismuth oxychloride. These sheets are then cut into tiny particles of many shapes including squares, rectangles, and hexagons.