Making hollow egg shells blows

Hand Blown Egg Shells

Hollow egg shells are such a great raw material, but collecting them, well, that BLOWS.

With Easter just a few months away I am doing what I should have been doing months ago--blowing out egg shells to use in my Easter projects.

Most of the time when I cook eggs I either poach them or hard boil them which means no chance at salvaging the whole shell. So when I encounter an opportunity to harvest a hallow shell, I jump at it. Whether it is baking a cake, making meatloaf, or scrambling up a quick frittata--my recipe start with "blow out an egg shell."

The method: One woman, one egg, and a pin

My method is simple in theory.

1. Poke a hole in both ends (I use a thumbtack to start the hole, followed by a pin to burst the yoke).
2. Blow

For a great hand-blown-egg tutorial that has pics of the pin method, check out "Baby Janyne's" blog. One disclaimer: The tutorial shows the egg streaming out of the tiny hole. That RARELY happens for me.

Do ladies blow?
The blowing process is extremely unladylike. Almost every egg I touch has some kind of clot that doesn't want to come through the hole. That means inevitably, my husband walks into the kitchen to find me blowing with all my might into a chicken egg. Let me just say, his crude jokes never get old.

I even picked up one of those hand-held suction thingys that moms use to suck snot out of their babies' noses because I read that you could use that to remove the yokes, but the clot still clogged the hole. Plus, when I used it, I got queasy picturing baby snot. There are also commercial blowing kits available, but I've never tried one.

Do you have a secret tool or method to blowing yolks out of egg shells? If so, PLEASE share!