We Tried It: Cool Whip Eggs

I'm a big fan of Easter eggs and have tried all sorts of variations: natural dyes (sooo muted), regular dyes (eh), an elaborate Ukrainian method called pysanky that involves tracing patterns on eggs with wax and then dipping them in dye (beautiful, but as hard as it sounds). In an effort to find an easy, pretty, and family-friendly technique, I took to the Internet and found Cool Whip eggs: beautifully swirled eggs dyed in a mound of Cool Whip marbleized with food coloring. It's fun and so simple that a little kid can do it (like mine—hi, Gus!), and you can eat the eggs afterward. In other words, it was eggsactly what I was looking for. Here's how to do it at home. 

Soak a dozen hard-boiled eggs in white vinegar for three minutes. This will help the dye set and give you brighter colors. Don't leave them for much longer than three minutes or the acid may damage the shell.

Spread one tub of thawed Cool Whip evenly on a baking sheet. Squeeze drops of food coloring over the Cool Whip. For the most vibrant colors, use gel food coloring.

Using a toothpick, a skewer, or a sharp small knife, swirl the colors to create a marbleized pattern. Make sure you get some color all over the Cool Whip, but don't mix the food coloring so much that the colors get muddled.

Roll the eggs through the Cool Whip, covering them completely. Let the eggs sit in the Cool Whip for 15 minutes to an hour. (The longer the eggs sit, the more colorful they'll be.) Rinse the eggs and marvel at your creations!