Easter is coming up quickly. It's next Sunday! As my grandmother used to sing "Here comes Peter Cottontail. . ."
I don't have much memories about Easter lunch when I was a kid. I think I remember the men being out on my grandmother's back porch barbequing (not all of us were vegetarians) while the women were inside. I'm pretty sure I remember deviled eggs (remember we're not vegan, just vegetarian) and possibly a potato salad, but then I might be getting it all mixed up with July 4th. Hey, it was Louisiana! It was hot on all holidays!
The one thing I do remember is my dessert. My Easter present from my grandmother was a 6-inch long individual cake. Always white on the inside and covered in a thin, but hard icing (much more edible than fondant) and always painted differently to make them look like dyed eggs. It impressed me that Baum's Bakery could produce an airbrushed icing look long before other bakeries could do it. I remember as I got older doing my best to eat just a little at a time to make it last longer. And my cousin and I would do our best not to get them mixed up. It helped that the colors were different.
All these years down the road, this little cake is still one of the highlights of my childhood. It stood for good times, family gatherings, and a beautiful time of year when we could run around outside picking wild flowers and eating the blackberries off the bushes.
Last time I called, Baum's doesn't ship these cakes. I tried to get a local baker to create one for me, but it never worked. It's hard for me to put together an Easter Dinner Menu without feeling it just won't be perfectly complete without these little cakes. Luckily, I don't have to work on that this year because I won't be in the kitchen. Perhaps I'll have to put extra effort into it for next year.
Until then, if you have a special Easter story to share or if you have a recommendation for a vegetarian Easter dish, please share it by clicking "Comment".
I also found a nice link to the history of some Easter food traditions here
. ". . .Hippity Hoppity, Happy Easter Day!"
