How to Hard Boil Eggs for Easter Decorating

Easter, also called Pascha or Resurrection Sunday is the time of the Christian year when Christians remember the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

When is Easter?

Why does Easter change each year?

Easter can be anytime between March 22 and April 25 and in 2019 it falls on Sunday, April 21.

Eastern and Western churches continue to celebrate Easter according to different calendars, although sometimes by chance the festivals coincide.

How to Hard boil Eggs for Easter Decorating

ilustration: easter eggs

Best way to hard boil eggs

If we’ve ever boiled an egg we’ve probably run into problems at one time or another.

The challenges with boiling an egg generally fall into cooking the egg and peeling the egg.

Despite following a set of directions precisely we might have found our eggs under or overcooked, or perhaps when we tried to peel the egg it ended up looking like the surface of the moon.

The best way to figure out what works for our setup is to boil a dozen eggs and start pulling the eggs out of the water in 30 second increments after about 3 minutes.

Put refrigerated eggs in a heavy bottomed pot and cover with cold tap water so they’re covered by about 1″ (2.5cm) of water. Bring the water to a full boil (100 degrees C) over high heat, and then remove the pot from the heat.

Let the eggs cook the rest of the way using the residual heat in the water. As the temperature of the egg rises, the temperature of the water will fall, which will give we a much wider window when our egg is perfectly cooked.

Hard boiled eggs time chart

Here are the cooking times for various types of boiled eggs. The times start after the water has come to a boil and we’ve turned off the heat.

2 minutes – The white isn’t fully set and the yolk is totally raw.
4 minutes – The white is fully set, but the yolk is thick and runny.
6 minutes – The white is fully set, and the yolk is mostly set, but still a little runny in the middle.
8 minutes – The white is fully set, and the yolk is set, but tender.
10 minutes – The white is fully set, and the yolk is fully set.

Remember to transfer our eggs to ice water as soon as you take them out of the pot to stop the cooking immediately. Otherwise, our eggs will continue cooking even after we’ve taken them out of the water.

The 1st thing we have to understand is that the egg yolk sets at a much lower temperature than the egg white (70 °C vs 80 °C).

Since the heat source (boiling water) is outside the egg, the egg cooks from the outside in. In theory, this means that by the time yolk is set, the white has also reached its higher setting temperature.

There are many other factors that will affect the cooking time of the egg and I’ve outlined some of the major ones below along with what I did in my kitchen.

Initial egg temperature – An egg right out of the fridge will take longer to cook than an egg at room temperature. But since room temperature varies by season, and most people have their fridges set to around the same temperature. I decided to develop my method using eggs straight out of the fridge.
Egg size – The bigger the egg, the longer it will take to cook.
Egg to water ratio – The more water we use relative to the number of eggs, the longer it will take to boil and the longer it will retain heat. Too much water and our eggs will cook too fast, too little and the temperature will fall too fast, resulting in uncooked eggs. Ideally, you’d measure out a certain amount of water for each egg you’re boiling. But that seems a little extreme for something so simple.
Heat retention of the pot we use – Thicker pots, made of denser materials (iron vs aluminum) tend to retain heat better than thinner pots. If we’re using an electric stove (coil or plate type), we should remove the pot from the stove and put it on a trivet after the water boils, as these types of stoves tend to retain heat long after we’ve turned them off.
Heat output of our stove – Some stoves are able to boil a pot of water much faster than others. IH (Induction) cooktops tend to be the most efficient, while electric plate type stoves tend to be the least efficient. If we try and do too many eggs, or use an under-powdered stove it will take too long for the water to come to a boil. If the water takes too long to boil, our eggs are going to be sitting in hot water for much longer, which will affect the amount of time they need to sit in the water after we turn the stove off.
Altitude – The boiling temperature of water falls as our altitude rises. If we live in the mountains, this will certainly affect our cooking times, so we’ll need to adjust accordingly.
Room temperature – If we’re in a very cold room, our water will cool faster than if we’re in a warm room.

How to hard boil eggs in the oven

Hard-boiling eggs in the oven is perfect for making large batches of eggs, and it offers consistent results with little fuss or attention required.

Preheat the oven to 325° F or 350° F.
Put a whole (unopened) egg in each individual cup of a 12-cup muffin pan.
Bake for 30 minutes, then remove eggs from pan. Be careful, they're very hot!
Immediately place eggs in your large bowl of cold water and ice. Let sit for 10 minutes. MUST be ice cold water!
Allow the eggs to cool, and then peel. The egg shell is also so much easier to take off !

How to make hard boiled eggs to color for easter

How to make Red White and Blue Deviled Eggs

Ingredients

1 dozen hard-boiled eggs
¼ cup nonfat plain yogurt (or desired amount)
1 tablespoon mayonnaise ( I prefer Hellman's/ Best Foods)
½ teaspoon dry mustard
salt & pepper

Instructions

Cut eggs in half and take out yolks and place them in a medium bowl.
Use a pastry cutter or fork to break up yolk until it's super fine.
Add yogurt, mayo, mustard, s&p and whip up with a spatula until smooth and creamy.
Place mixture into piping bag fitted with a 2D tip.
Mix 1 cup hot water and 1 teaspoon Americolor food coloring and 1 tablespoon vinegar. The vinegar helps the color stay bright, I tried it both ways and the eggs with vinegar have a brighter color.
Place egg whites into the colored water and let sit until the desired color is achieved about 1-2 minutes.
Take out egg whites and place on paper towel to allow the excess color to drip off.
Then arrange eggs on a platter.
Pipe the egg yolk mixture into the egg white halves.

Notes
We prefer Americolor Food Coloring, the colors are rich and vibrant and there is no taste. We used super-red, red-red and navy blue for these eggs.

Easy peel hard boiled eggs

Have you ever spent far too long trying to peel an egg only to be left with a huge mess, the egg in pieces and so much regret?

Pop them in the oven for 30 minutes and voila! Perfect hard boiled eggs every time!

Peeling these eggs is so easy and fast that the eggs almost slip out of the shell when we use this method.

The other method that works every time, no matter how fresh the egg is.

The secret is to put a small crack in the bottom of the egg (the fat side) BEFORE you boil it. The crack needs to extend all the way through the hard shell, but it must not rupture the membrane (otherwise we’ll end up with egg white spewing out of the crack as it boils).

We use a small curved object (the end of a wooden pestle) to crack the egg on because it creates a more predictable circular crack rather than a linear crack that could spread and rupture the membrane.