With Easter fast approaching, many of us backyard chicken owners are ready with baskets full of fresh eggs!

Hens really start laying on overdrive when the weather warms up and the sun decides to hang around later each evening. Those eggs we waited for all winter, may now be arriving in droves! Easter is the perfect time to use up lots of those delicious eggs!

 

No Easter would be complete without dying Easter eggs, and when you have your own eggs fresh from your hens, it makes it all the more enjoyable.

White, cream, blue, green, and dark brown- many of us have chickens that can pre-dye the eggs for us. This variation in egg color can also lend to some fun color experimentation! Dying Easter eggs with your family, can also serve as a fun way to learn about color. Add a blue egg into yellow dye, and you’ll end up with a pretty green egg and a little color mixing lesson in the process! Different eggshell colors will hold the dye in different ways, and this can be a fun experiment for both kids and adults. Our dark eggs from our Midnight Majesty Marans, made some of the deepest emu egg greens and deep reds I’ve ever seen! A little tip is buying two packs of egg dying kits and double up the color tablets in each mug. You’ll get some bright, vivid colors this way. The longer they sit, the deeper the colors become.

Referencing photos of my colored layers, I created a little, fun coloring page for kids. My daughter loves it when I draw her custom coloring pages, so I decided to do one with chickens! It includes 4 colored laying breeds offered at Hoover’s Hatchery™, Americana, Prairie Bluebell Egger™, Midnight Majesty Marans™, and Sapphire Olive Egger™. You and your child will have fun telling each breed apart! Click here to download the coloring sheet.

In addition to boiling up eggs for coloring, I scoured the internet for a good cake recipe that uses A LOT of eggs. If you’re like me, even after sharing, my family still ends up with way more eggs than we can eat. This recipe calls for 12, that’s right, 12 YOLKS! Along with using up those farm fresh eggs, it also makes the perfect cake to serve on Easter. All the yolks give it a striking, bright yellow interior that screams Spring! With a slightly crunchy exterior, and a spongy middle, this cake is sweet without being too decadent. It also lends well to flavor adjustments!

I adjusted mine by adding 2 tablespoons of almond extract and topping with raspberry preserves and lemon icing.

The recipe was created by Paula at CallMePMc.com. You can find it at this link https://www.callmepmc.com/twelve-yolk-pound-cake/