Panoramic Easter Eggs are a fun Easter craft for kids! They are decorated with frosting, flowers, jelly beans and little bunnies and chicks.
Panoramic Easter Eggs
I love these Panoramic Easter Eggs for Easter. My mom used to make them for all of us kids when we were little. We each got our own on Easter morning. It was always something we looked forward to. Now that I have my own little family, the tradition lives on. It is such a fun family activity that everyone can enjoy. Kids love decorating the inside. They are beautiful decorations to display for Easter and you can save them forever. See tips on how to save them below.
Beautiful But Not Edible
Though this isn’t a recipe that is edible, I still wanted to add it to the site because this truly is a family favorite. It has ingredients so it qualifies as a recipe, right? If you are looking for some edible Easter recipes, try one of these “Must Have” Easter Desserts and Treats!
What you need to make Panoramic Easter Eggs
- First of all, you need an egg mold. I found these at the grocery store for $3 (see image below). They are some of the best quality ones I have found and they aren’t even intended to be egg molds! They were actually filled with Snickers and Reeses candies. I love how they have a flat base so the egg will stand easily. They are cheaper than ones you may find in a craft store, plus you get some candy with them. You can’t lose! Look around and be creative – you will find something.
- Egg white
- Sugars – granulated and powder
- Jelly beans or other small Easter candies
- Tiny Easter figurines and decorations. These can be found at craft stores or online. The flowers in the photos above are buttons.
Once the eggs have started to set, they need to be hollowed out. It is important to do this when the outside is hard, but the insides are still soft. Once the egg has fully set, it cannot be reshaped! Pick up the egg half, hold it in the palm of one hand and use a spoon to scrape out the moist sugar (I would have done this in the picture but I couldn’t hold the egg and scrape and take a picture at the same time.
Continue to scrape the interior of the egg until you have a sugar shell that is about 1/2-inch thick. You want it to be as thin as possible, while still being sturdy enough to hold together.
Scrape out the interior of the other egg half. CAREFULLY use a serrated knife to slice off the tip of each egg, this will be the hole you look through to see the panorama so make it about the size you would like. Be careful not to apply too much pressure and cause the egg to collapse or crack. Continue to gently whittle/sand away to front of the egg until the two halves match. At this point the eggs need to dry out further before they can be completed. I would recommend letting them dry out overnight. Once the egg halves are dry and very hard, you can decorate the inside with a beautiful Easter scene.
Tips for decorating Panoramic Easter Eggs
- Pipe a small amount of royal icing (click HERE for recipe) into the bottom portion of the egg half. This is to anchor everything else you add. If you don’t want the royal frosting to show you can add a layer of green-tinted coconut or Easter grass.
- If you prefer, you can also use a hot glue gun to adhere the decorations in the Easter egg and then fill in with Easter grass.
- When gluing the top half of the egg onto the decorated bottom half, make sure the two halves line up evenly. You can “glue” the two halves together with royal icing or a hot glue gun. If using royal icing, run your finger around the seam to remove an excess frosting before it hardens.
- Use a decorative tip to pipe a frosting border along the seam where the two halves of the egg are glued together.
- Pipe a frosting border around the “window” opening.
- Use frosting flowers, ribbon, butterflies, etc. to decorate the outside of the egg.
How to preserve Panoramic Easter Eggs
Once it has set, your Panoramic Easter Eggs are complete! To save it for future Easters, wrap them carefully in paper or plastic and store them in a box in a safe place. Do not refrigerate the egg and do not attempt to eat it! Stored properly, your egg can be saved for years. Just ask my friend, Abby, she still has hers from when my Mom came to our 2nd grade class and made them. You will see in the comments below that Peggy still has eggs she made 40 years ago!
Tips from Readers
Just a tip about the opening you look into. When you unmold the top and bottom sugar shapes to bake, put them on a wooden board with the small ends facing each other. Cut about an inch off of each small end, scrape away that portion and carefully push the two egg halves together so those blunt ends touch. After they have baked, take them off the board and scrape out the insides. The viewing opening will automatically form. – Virginia
I have made these eggs over the last 60 yrs. One trick I use is to perforate the viewing end, using a tooth pick, so it can be easily, but carefully, be cracked off when scraping the egg out. You need to make a 1/2 circle of perforations on the top and again on the matching bottom. This should be done, carefully, when the sugar egg is first turned out of the mold. Also, when I read your suggestion of drying the eggs in the oven for 1/2 hr or so,I thought this was a great idea. But I found 15 min would be better. The egg was terribly hard to scrape out when dried 1/2 hr.
I like to scrape my dried egg shell out to about 1/4 to 1/3 inch. I feel 1/2 inch makes the egg too heavy. – Julia
I learned how to make these 30+ years ago, when I was learning to decorate cakes professionally to get my creative juices an outlet. I used paste food coloring for more vivid pinks, blues etc for the sugar egg. Sometimes I used a ribbon that went all the way around the horizontal egg with a bow on top and had crafted flowers like roses that dried hard, then were attached. The background inside could be photos of small clusters of flowers etc found on postcards. Have to be small as it is background. I saw upright plastic eggs med size at Walmart that held candy, but would make perfect molds. I have used a Wilton egg shaped 2 piece cake pan, to make a giant egg as a centerpiece to use “after” the actual cake was cut up and served, still had a centerpiece for the table. – Shelley
Comments from Readers
We’ve enjoyed reading comments from so many people that have memories of making these Panoramic Easter Eggs. Hopefully, it will not be a lost art, and memories will continue to be made!
I have made many many of these Eggs! I have also made, BABY BASSINETS, using this mold! Made one for a Baby Shower, about 50 yrs ago, and she still has it! Absolutely Adorable! – Eileen
I remember making something like this when I was a kid. Brought back a lot of memories. Thanks! – Stephanie
My aunt presented one of these eggs to my 2 yr old daughter for Easter 36 years ago! I still have the egg and we now bring it out every Easter for my now 10 year old granddaughter to enjoy. I still have the original newspaper it was wrapped in from 36 years ago. It is wrapped and stored in an old cracker tin and it is still in perfect condition! Now that I’ve found this tutorial, I’m going to attempt to make a few new eggs this year. Thanks for the tutorial. It brought back great Easter memories! – Mary
I’m so glad I found this site. I made sugar eggs about 28 years ago for my children’s classes, family and friends. They were a big hit! Using the large wilton sugar mold, I made the flat bottom the panoramic window and removed one end to make the bottom. I used thread to gently “saw” the bottom off and loosen the panoramic window. I’m researching how to do them again because I’m making them for my grandchildren this year. I went to see my Aunt last year and she said I have something to show you. She still had the sugar egg I made her so long ago. It was in a large plastic ziplock bag and except for some fading of the royal icing it looked great. – Eva
How to make Panoramic Easter eggs
Ingredients
- 1 egg white
- food coloring optional
- 3 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- royal frosting
- jelly beans
- tiny Easter figurines and decorations
Instructions
- Whisk the egg white until it becomes kind of foamy. In a separate bowl, mix together the granulated and powdered sugars so they’re mixed well. Pour the egg white into the sugars and begin stirring.*
- At first it will seem like it won't get wet enough, but keep stirring until it becomes like damp beach sand.
- Once your sugar mixture is ready, start filling your egg mold. With each scoop, pack down firmly. You want the egg to be smooth, so press down on the sugar to prevent any small gaps or cracks from forming. If you have excess sugar and want to make more eggs, keep it in a bowl and place a damp paper towel directly over the sugar to prevent it from drying out.
- Place a stiff piece of cardboard directly on the top of the mold. Bracing one hand on the cardboard and the other underneath the mold, quickly flip it upside-down so that the egg halves are now resting on the cardboard. Quickly remove the mold—now you should have two perfect sugar egg halves.
- At this point, the egg halves need to dry out a little before you can use them. You can let them sit at room temperature for about 6-7 hours, or you can put them in a 200-degree oven for 15-30 minutes (depending on the humidity and elevation where you live). Once the eggs have started to set, they need to be hollowed out. It is important to do this when the outside is hard, but the insides are still soft. Once the egg has fully set, it cannot be reshaped! Pick up the egg half, hold it in the palm of one hand and use a spoon to scrape out the moist sugar. Continue to scrape the interior of the egg until you have a sugar shell that is about 1/2-inch thick. You want it to be as thin as possible, while still being sturdy enough to hold together.Scrape out the interior of the other egg half. CAREFULLY use a serrated knife to slice off the tip of each egg, this will be the hole you look through to see the panorama so make it about the size you would like. Be careful not to apply too much pressure and cause the egg to collapse or crack. Continue to gently whittle/sand away to front of the egg until the two halves match. At this point the eggs need to dry out further before they can be completed. I would recommend letting them dry out overnight.
- Once the egg halves are dry and very hard, you can decorate the inside with a beautiful Easter scene. Pipe a small amount of royal icing (click HERE for recipe) into the bottom portion of the egg half. This is to anchor everything else you add. Add a layer of green-tinted coconut or Easter grass, if desired, and press gently to adhere it to the frosting. Add little figurines, pictures, buttons, small candies, or sugar decorations. It is easiest to add a dab of royal icing to the back or bottom of your decorations to help them stick. Now it is time to glue the two halves of the egg together. Pipe a thin line of royal icing (or you can use a hot glue gun) around the lip of the bottom half of the egg. Press the top half down onto the bottom, making sure that they line up evenly. Run your finger around the seam where the eggs meet to remove any excess frosting. You want to do this right away so that it will not begin to harden into unsightly shapes. Allow the egg to sit for about 30 minutes, until the frosting has hardened enough to move the egg without damaging it.
- Time to put the finishing touches on your egg! Pipe a decorative border around the seams where the two egg halves were joined together. Also pipe a border around the opening of the window, to better frame the scene inside and to hide any uneven edges. If you have frosting flowers or other decorations for the outside of the egg, now is the time to put them on. Use a small dab of royal frosting to secure them to the egg. Decorate to your desire with any additional frosting.
