Almost Paradise

We had a party on the Easter weekend this year and, as always, it was great fun.

I know, I know. It’s already Memorial Day. Easter was more than a month ago! It took me a while to get all the pysanky photos I wanted together. Thanks to Chris for providing additional photos, as well as the egg-blowing video.

The pysanky was a hit — I underestimated the attraction. I’d had a card table set aside for the dye bowls, candles, beeswax, and kistkas, separate from the main table where the food and the kids’ egg coloring was to be had. I thought only I and a couple of friends who’d tried it last year would be doing it, but other guests were fascinated and wanted to try, too. I ran out of the raw eggs I’d set aside and had to raid the fridge for more. Counting myself, six people tried their hands at it.

Over the years, I’ve improved my egg-handling techniques. This year, with so many people doing pysanky eggs, it felt like I’d gone into full-scale production mode. Here are this year’s how-to notes. (Warning: lots of photos ahead!)

1. Wax and dye a raw egg as desired.

This is the part that everybody focuses on, because it’s where all the artistic talent is needed to draw the beeswax designs and select the perfect colors. But once that’s been done, you’re finished, right? Nope. You still have to blow the raw egg and remove the wax to expose the design.

2. Give the egg a final protective wax coat.

Once all the waxing and dyeing is done, it’s a good idea to completely coat the egg with wax. In previous years I didn’t do this, and then when I put my lips to the egg to blow it, the dye smeared and ran on the unwaxed parts where my lips touched, as well as at the bottom immediately around the hole where the yolk and white drained out. It’s a real bummer to spend hours on a design and then have it smeared away at the very end. If you give the egg an all-over wax coat, the dye won’t smear.

At first I tried covering the rest of the egg with beeswax using a kistka, but that took too long. I had a better idea. Using Judy’s fondue gear, a pyrex dish, and some extra paraffin candle wax, I made a molten wax bath so I could give the eggs a quick dip before the next steps. Just don’t dunk the egg too long, or the heat will start to cook it.

3. Drill the egg.

Take the waxed egg and make holes in the top and bottom. I used to pick open the holes using a needle or the tip of a sharp knife, but now I use a cordless drill with a ⅛” bit. It’s much neater. Power tools rock! Waxing the egg also helps prevent shell cracks during the drilling.

4. Blow the egg.

Run a bamboo skewer through the holes in the egg to puncture the yolk membrane. Then, blow the yolk and white out of the egg. I blow eggs the old fashioned way, by mouth, over the kitchen sink.

5. Remove the wax from the egg.

The traditional way to do this is to hold the egg near a candle flame and, spot by spot, melt and wipe away the wax until it’s all gone. You can’t let the flame touch the egg, or you’ll get soot stains on it. This method is slow and requires a lot of patience.

I use a drying rack instead. It’s like a miniature bed of nails that you balance the blown, wax-covered eggs on and heat in an oven. Last year I used a cardboard rack, which was easy to construct but didn’t hold the nails very well. So this year, I made one with a scrap piece of wood laminate plank instead. The nails don’t wobble, and I can reuse it next year. Stick it into a 250° toaster oven and presto, the wax melts off the eggs in a flash. No tedious spot-by-spot melting and wiping, and no worrying about soot stains.

At first, the drying rack was just the plank with the nails. Last year’s cardboard rack had easily soaked up the melted-off wax drippings, but the wood laminate wasn’t nearly as absorbent. Instead of soaking in, the wax puddled on the surface, creeping toward the edge and threatening to drip onto the toaster oven’s heating elements. Not wanting to start a kitchen fire, I had to periodically slide the board out and drain the wax onto paper towels.

“You need something to contain the wax,” Kirk said. “Maybe some aluminum foil.” Maybe a paper towel too, I thought to myself, for absorbency. After all it was only 250°; not hot enough to burn paper, I hoped. We put a paper towel down onto the nails, piercing the sheet as we pushed it down past the nails until it was snuggled against the plank. We did the same with a sheet of foil, and folded up the edges to make a tray. Now the board had a nifty little drip tray, and it even had a protective absorbent underlayer. It worked like a charm — no more drips.

See? This is what happens when you invite techies to a party.

It’s cool to watch eggs in the oven that are covered with soot-blackened beeswax to the point where the design is completely concealed. As the wax melts, it carries the soot with it and drips down the sides in big black drops, and the colored shell is revealed, almost magically. Sometimes if the wax is thick, it will melt and slide off the egg in chunks, a little like icebergs calving off of a glacier. Once the wax has entirely melted off, you take the egg out and wipe it carefully with paper towels. And then you’re done.

6. Admire your handiwork.

Caroline did two eggs — first, a clean and simple deep blue egg with a few white lines, and then a dark red cracked-shell design.

Chris also did a blue egg, with a cool cross pattern.

Julie really got into it. First she tried a cheerful cartoony egg, with flowers and a bunny. Then she did a careful floral design that looked like a designer fabric pattern.

Kirk did a couple of pastel eggs.

Takako and Erin did an egg that, for lack of a better description, made me think of glazed pottery.

I did a modified falling-cube design.

Acknowledgement:
Most of my ideas are from Jane Pollak’s Decorating Eggs: Exquisite Designs With Wax & Dye. It’s a great book.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 29th, 2006 at 12:23 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.