What Are Your Favorite Easter Foods & Recipes?

Easter is this weekend, and I am preparing a big dinner for 10 guests on Sunday afternoon. I love the foods of Easter; there are recipes I only make for this holiday (like these fried rolls from my mother's family recipe box). What about you? Do you celebrate Easter with any special foods? A bunny cake, perhaps? Or do you just show up for the jellybeans and chocolate bunnies?

Personally, I find Easter to be the best food holiday of the year. This year I am going to braise a large leg of lamb, bake a huge honey-colored braided loaf, roast golden beets, and grate fresh horseradish. I plan on making curried deviled eggs, and little lemon puddings.

This is the kind of food I like best — it's even better than Thanksgiving and Christmas.

What about you? What are your favorite Easter foods and recipes? Do you do ham? Lamb? A brunch? What are your plans for Easter food this year?

More Easter Food:
• Looking for a Fresh, Vegetarian Easter Menu
• Good Question: Side Dishes to Go With Easter Ham?
• Look! Ana's Easter Breakfast
• Butter Lamb for Easter: Traditional or Wacky?
• Surprise Eggs & DIY Peeps: Easter Treats & Projects

(Image: Faith Durand)

Comments (10)

lamb cake, of course! made in my mother's cast iron lamb cake mold. it wouldn't be Easter without a frantic attempt to keep his ears from falling off! :)

We always made an easter basket cake in our house and filled the top with pastel M&M's and those foil covered Dove eggs and jelly beans. Now that I live in Dublin I fill them with Cadbury mini eggs! http://fromchinavillage.com/2011/04/easter-baskets/

I bake a lamb pound cake in my dad's old 50 year old lamb mold. Today I did it with my grandson, on his way to being a chef ( I gave him a chef coat for Christmas).

We never had any particular Easter dinner tradition in my home, except that it was always brunch food, post-Mass. Egg dishes and sweet rolls make the most frequent appearances. My grandmother used to make a ham "because you're supposed to make a ham," but that gave way to quicker brunch foods as the years went by. Sparkling wine such as Asti Spumante or Prosecco started showing up some years ago but are gone as we have too many tired parents of young children. They will be back.

Oh, and my daughter is lobbying for bunny cake.

Leg of lamb with mint jelly, asparagus with hollandaise, deviled eggs and dinner rolls.

Oh, I can't wait!

I'm looking forward to lamb...especially since a chef friend shared this easy roast leg of lamb recipe to use: http://mominthecity.com/wp/easter-recipe-roast-leg-of-lamb/

Asparagus is my absolute favorite side dish! Here's an elegant but simple recipe for the green spears! http://clarendon.patch.com/articles/easter-feaster-put-all-your-eggs-in-this-basket

Paska!!! aka Ukrainian Easter bread. Easter is not complete without it, and I am making some as we speak.

I'm posting a link to a pretty good recipe, but you must almost double the egg amount! It makes it from "oh so good" to "wow".

Also I do not add raisins, just because I want to savor the taste of the bread.

http://kitchenmagpie.com/easter-bread-or-ukrainian-babka

It's really easy to make and tastes delicious.

Toothpick inserts will repair an injured cake lamb. Just remember to warn the eater.
Made a bunny with plain coconut frosting and toasted it to cover the lamb. The brown variegation in his fleece made it more lifelike.
Added violets all around, and used them for birthday cakes last night.