Traditional Easter Marbled Pace Eggs

"This is a very old British tradition & method of colouring and dying eggs to be boiled and eaten on Good Friday & throughout the Easter weekend. There are commercial dyes available nowadays, but I still prefer the traditional natural methods of colouring my Easter Pace Eggs – onions skins (and also spinach & beetroot water). The name Pace is thought to derive from the French word for Easter, Pâques…and in some parts of Britain – mainly Lancashire in the North West, these eggs are rolled down a hill, the winner being the owner of the egg which goes the furthest and has the least cracks or breaks in it! It is also traditional to give one of these eggs to each person who visits your home throughout the Easter period - what a wonderful alternative to the commercially over packaged chocolate eggs!"
 
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photo by French Tart photo by French Tart
photo by French Tart
photo by Phunny Pharmer photo by Phunny Pharmer
photo by Artandkitchen photo by Artandkitchen
photo by Artandkitchen photo by Artandkitchen
photo by True Texas photo by True Texas
Ready In:
25mins
Ingredients:
6
Yields:
12 Pace Eggs
Serves:
6-12
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ingredients

  • 12 fresh organic eggs
  • 6 -8 onion skins (red and yellow)
  • aluminium aluminum foil
  • natural non-coloured string
  • butter (optional)
  • beetroot water (optional) or spinach water (optional)
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directions

  • Peel the outer skins away from red and yellow onions.
  • Wrap the skins around the eggs in a random way - you do not need to cover the egg completely.
  • Encase the eggs with the onionskins in a piece of aluminium foil - covering completely, OR tie pieces of non-coloured string around the eggs.
  • Boil the eggs for about 5-7 minutes.
  • Take off the heat and allow to cool in the water.
  • Peel away the string, aluminium foil, onion skins and arrange the coloured eggs in a basket or egg holder - for the centre of the Easter Breakfast, Tea or Brunch table.
  • You can "polish" the eggs with a bit of butter to deepen the colours and give them a gloss.
  • Alternative dyes include, beetroot water and spinach water for red and green eggs!

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Reviews

  1. These are the most beautiful natural eggs I have ever seen. My granddaughter did not want to make them when I first described them. But when we started wrapping our eggs in various leaves and onion skins, she started having fun. When we unwrapped the eggs, it was like Christmas. We were so giddy and excited to see what each one would look like. We used brown and red onion skins, purple cabbage leaves and pigweed leaves (because I forgot to buy spinach). [pigweed is a wild edible amaranth plant that grows like mad here] Happy Easter and thanks so much for giving us a new way to make our Easter Eggs!
     
  2. Very easy and funny! I wrapped the eggs in used plastic bags, made small cuts with knive to let going inside. Then WOW
     
  3. Great fun! I tried this with some red cabbage leaves, and my eggs turned the prettiest shade of light BLUE. This also brought back memories--my mom's family used to make Easter eggs this way. Thanks for posting! Made for Spring 2010 PAC.
     
  4. This is so cool. I love this idea. DH said, "I know we won't have the grandkids this Easter, but lets make some boiled eggs anyway." So, I remembered I had put this recipe in my "To Try" cookbook last year and I had also put some big onion skins away sometime back. This was easy and a really way to make eggs, will have to do this again next year.
     
  5. These are so pretty and easy to do. Showed my friends at Bible Study how to do this and they were impressed also. Thank you for sharing this - too much fun!!
     
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RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

<p><strong><span>The sunflowers in the field behind my house in SW France:</span></strong></p> <p><img title=Sunflowers src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/DSCN8221.jpg alt=Sunflowers width=640 height=480 /><br /><strong><span><br /><br />I am British (English-Scottish), but I was born in South Africa and have lived all over the world, including Hong Kong, Germany, Cyprus, USA &amp; Singapore. I have also been very fortunate to have travelled extensively over the years.........I still have wanderlust! <br /><br />I used to be an English Literature &amp; Art History teacher &amp; lecturer; before that, I trained and worked as a Graphic Designer for many years. I now live in France with my husband &amp; my daughter who has just started university in September 2006. We also have one very chatty Burmese cat Willow, who allows us to live with her here! (I used to have three cats, I recently lost Monty, a beautiful seal point Siamese and before that, Rama, who was a debonair blue point Siamese cat - I would love to have another Siamese cat or cats in the future!)</span></strong></p> <p><em><strong><span>This is my Burmese Cat, Willow, sunning herself on the log pile in the kitchen garden:</span></strong></em></p> <p><strong><img title=My src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/ABaconButtyandSundryFoodPhotos34.jpg alt=My width=640 height=480 /></strong></p> <p><strong><span>Here is my lovely Monty, a seal point Siamese, and Willow, sitting&nbsp;in the kitchen garden last year, and a few months before Monty died; he was 18yrs old:</span></strong></p> <p><img title=Monty src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/AbsolutelySinfulStickyToffeePudding.jpg alt=Monty width=640 height=480 />My</p> <p><strong><span>This is my wonderful old boy, Rama, a blue-point Siamese, who died when he was 20yrs old - excuse the old and much sellotaped photo:</span></strong></p> <p><img title=Rama src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/Rama1stOctober2004164.jpg alt=Rama width=517 height=639 /></p> <p><strong><span>My favourite pastimes are: reading, writing, painting &amp; drawing, photography, gardening, anything creative, walking, travelling, dining out and of course COOKING! I love all types of cuisine, but especially Traditional British - and NO it is NOT all bad!! I particularly love food associated with the changing seasons plus traditional feasts &amp; festivals, as well as Slow Cooking. I also enjoy French &amp; North African cuisine, come to think of it, there isn't much I don't like! <br /><br />My husband &amp; I run a Chambres D'Hotes, (Bed and Breakfast) called Auberge de la Fontaine here in beautiful South West France; we specialise in Gourmet Food &amp; Wine Breaks, French Antiques &amp; Restoration courses, French Language courses and French Cookery classes. Our home is completely furnished with Antique French furniture that we have rescued &amp; restored ourselves. Our charming village has one of the oldest Churches in the region &amp; it is famous for its connection with the St.Jacques de Compostella Pilgrimage route, as well as being within the Cognac &amp; Bordeaux wine growing area. <br /><br />We have a wonderful garden where we grow ALL of our own herbs and most of our fruit and vegetables. I specialise in rare, unusual and old-fashioned herbs, which I grow in our walled garden. As well as growing herbs, I also grow many different varieties of lavender, old-fashioned shrub roses and heirloom fruit and vegetables. <br /><br />We have lived overseas for many, many years now - but we both still love going home to Northern England, near Scarborough &amp; York, to visit our family &amp; friends. We also love indulging in dining out when we are there, in a wide variety of EXCELLENT Gastro-Pubs that we have in North Yorkshire; and popping in to have a Pint of REAL ENGLISH ALE in our local pub is a always a must!! <br /></span></strong></p> <p><br /><a href=http://photobucket.com/images/merci%20beaucoup target=_blank><img src=http://i420.photobucket.com/albums/pp287/vi-vie15/Merci/hb09izl7.gif border=0 alt=merci /></a> <br /><br /><strong><span>A Message to all who make and review my recipes! I try very hard to reply to EACH and EVERYONE of you who kindly makes, reviews and photographs my recipes! However, sometimes I am so busy in the B and B, and with other things, that I may be late in sending a personal thank you message, and sometimes I forget completely! I would just like to thank you ALL in advance, and just in case I am late or forgetful in sending a personal thanks. I am always very humbled by anyone who chooses to make one of my recipes, and I love reading the reviews and seeing the beautiful photos that are posted. Merci beaucoup encore! <br /><br />A note about my recipes. All of my posted recipes, whether they be my own concoctions or adaptations from a book or a famous chef, have been tried and tested at least once, by ME! I try to make sure that I am the guinea pig and not you! However, if there is anything you would like ask me about one of my recipes, or a query that I may be able to help you with, please do write and I will try to answer your question as soon as possible. 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