If you haven’t yet been inundated by cloud eggs you may be living in a cave (or perhaps simply don’t live on Instagram and Facebook, ahem…). But either way, even if you are familiar with them I can guarantee you’ve never seen a rainbow/mermaid/unicorn version until now.
Unicorn smoothies and mermaid toast are all the brilliantly time-wasting, superfood powdered rage these days, so it was only logical (completely illogical) for me to take the flash in a pan cloud egg craze a ridiculous step further and make the cloud a full rainbow explosion. Using only colours made from real food of course.
Pink from beetroot, yellow from turmeric and green from matcha are fairly logical. Blue however is a completely different story. There are all sorts of somehow-natural blue powders floating around right now, but in the absence of all of them in my cupboard I went for the method I used years ago for those natural coloured easter eggs – red cabbage and a pinch of baking soda. Yes really.
Of course you can make these plain white or pick one colour per cloud, but if you have lots of other things that you should be doing (oh like packing for both a move and an extended holiday) this is the perfect procrastination solution. You’re welcome (and don’t tell RJ).
Why just make regular cloud eggs when you can make rainbow unicorn cloud eggs? That is the question. The answer of course is why on earth not.
- 4 eggs
- sea salt & cracked black pepper
- 1/4 tsp matcha powder
- 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
- 1/2 tsp beetroot juice
- 1 handful chopped red cabbage
- pinch baking soda (bi-carb)
- 1/2 tsp white vinegar or water
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Blue: In a small sauce pan, bring 1/2 cup water and the red cabbage to a boil. Simmer 5 mins until the water is deep purple and reduced by about half. Remove from heat and add a tiny pinch of baking powder, stir well, the water will turn from purple to blue. Add a bit more baking powder if you wish - if it gets too green you can add the tiniest dash (seriously, one drop) of vinegar to bring it back to a deep blue. Spoon a bit of liquid into a small dish to cool. Alternatively, if you have a blue superfood powder in your cupboard combine 1/4 tsp powder with 1/4 tsp water like you're about to do for yellow and green.
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Yellow & Green: In small dish combine matcha with half the vinegar (or water) and stir to dissolve. Do the same with the turmeric and remaining vinegar/water in a seperate dish.
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Pink: Beetroot is the go here, you can juice/blend fresh beetroot and use the liquid or simmer a bit of grated fresh beetroot in a bit of water like you did for the cabbage and use cooled cooking liquid. Alternatively, if you have a red superfood powder in your cupboard combine 1/4 tsp powder with 1/4 tsp vinegar (or water) like you did for the yellow and green.
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Purple: I didn't use purple because time and sanity, however if you have a purple superfood powder or want to explore using purple cabbage water without the baking soda, or test blueberries, go for your life.
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Preheat oven to 230ºC (450ºF). Line an oven tray with baking paper. Seperate eggs, placing whites in a large bowl and leaving yolks in the half shells - this protects the yolks and makes them easier to transfer later. Whisk whites with a pinch of sea salt to stiff peaks.
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Divide beaten whites evenly into four bowls. Add all the yellow into one bowl, all the green into another, and whisk each briefly to incorporate. Add 1/4 tsp blue liquid into the third bowl of whites, whisk and add a bit more coloured liquid if you wish but not too much or the eggs won't hold shape. Repeat with 1/4 to 1/2 tsp red liquid and the fourth bowl.
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Spoon colored whites from one bowl into four small mounds on the prepared tray. Add spoonfuls of the second colour to the first, and so on with the third and fourth until you have four mounds of rainbow egg whites. Use the back of a spoon to make a small depression in the centre of each rainbow cloud.
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Bake rainbow clouds for 2 minutes. Remove from oven, tip a yolk into the centre of each cloud and return to oven for 3 minutes until the top of the yolk is firm (it will still be runny inside). Season with pepper and serve with toast or quinoa or rice or nothing if you wish, I also added a dollop of yoghurt because why not. Avocado not pictured but always encouraged.
- You can whisk the whites by hand but an electric whisk or beaters will make life easier and breakfast quicker.
- I used vinegar to dissolve the colours as I don't mind vinegar and it gave the whites a bit of flavour, if you hate vinegar use water instead.
- No, you don't have to add the colurs, you can simply make standard cloud eggs by leaving out all the colour steps -- but why on earth would you be here if all you wanted was white cloud eggs? Eggactly.
vegetarian // dairy-free // gluten-free // nut-free // soy-free
Hat tip: So where did these crazy eggs come from? Well there was a recipe for them a few years ago here and the industrious Sara tracked them back a bit further to 2002. Before then, who knows. Just don’t let anyone on Instagram tell you they created them… ha!
Nice, very nice!!
I literally started having hunger pangs halfway through the post. It looks amazing and I bet it also tastes delicious too. It is the perfect dish to cook up in this season. I can’t wait to try it . Looking forward to reading more delectable recipes in the upcoming posts.