Message Boards

We have a cake in the shape of a cross. We always do the traditional hiding of eggs for the kids, but the cross cake helps us remember the real meaning of Easter.

I have been pondering what dessert to offer for our Resurrection Sunday meal (and something to make into a tradition). 

To answer your question, the bunny cake wouldn't make it to my table.  As one day I would have to tell my kiddos that the Easter Bunny isn't real, even though I've been telling them so many years that he was.  Might make it hard for them to believe that Jesus is real one day, if I start that.   I have not heard of the lamb cake before, so that is intriguing. 

In the past, with my church class, I would bake biscuits with marshmallows inside.  The mallows melt and you have a 'version' of the empty tomb, a starting point for discussion on the resurrection of Christ.  I am planning on doing that this year for breakfast with my two toddlers.  

I really like AlabamaCooks idea of a cross cake, though, for our lunch meal or maybe the Thursday beforehand. 

Thanks for the insight on the lamb cake and the mention of the cross cake.  I have to decide what will be our new family tradition!

After all the candy and goodies early in the day we always have strawberry shortcake for dessert after we barbecue marinated butterflied lamb.  In S. Calif. we have fresh Gaviota strawberries at the Farmer's Market that are so delicate that cannot be shipped to grocery stores so we celebrate Easter and the arrival of spring with our beautiful spring strawberries.

We asked our Facebook fans this question, too! Here are some of their responses:

Carla Meyer McGilvery: You can dye coconut green and place it around the bunny with jelly bean eggs - great centerpiece on the dessert table.

Stacia Schrecongost: an easter basket cake instead

Martie Vacek: Neither. I make an Easter Egg cake. I use a batter bowl to bake the cake, cut it in half, stick the two ends together, and decorate. I put it on a cake pedestal and surround it with tinted coconut and jelly beans.

Jennifer Pratt Szendre: Easter Pig! My aunt made the pears that were supposed to look like bunnies and my mom thought they were pigs. From the next year on we make an "Easter Pig" cake using Hershey kisses for the eyes and nostrils, a pipe cleaner for the tail and coconut dyed green for the grass around it!

I used to make a cross cake but had so much trouble getting the cake to release easily out of the pan that it was a 50-50 proposition whether it would break or not. When it worked, I covered it in a dark choclate ganache and decorated it with white icing cornellis (sp?) to look like a solid chocolate candy cross and it was very beautiful. Our local candy maker makes high quality chcoloate crosses which I always include in our Easter baskets, along with chcolate lambs. And I have made the empty tombs before as well-delicious but messy to make. I was thinking of a bunny cake this year as a lamb pan is harder to find. As long as the religous symbolism of the rabbit is explained ("Fertility = New Life = Resurrection" as opposed to just "Spring"), I see no contradiction in using a bunny cake in a devout household.

Our family has a lamb cake if we have any dessert. I started the tradition for our children after a memory from when I was younger,my father would go to eastern market in downtown Detroit the day or two before Palm sunday and purchase a pound cake in the shape of a lamb and iced to look like a lamb. We had it on display until Easter and had it for dessert on Easter. It wasn't very sweet which was a good thing after all the candy we had all day. I always told my children the lamb was a symbol of the "lamb of god" who took away our sins. It was important to convey to the children the meaning of Easter and NOT just bunnies and candy!

Loved reading everyones responses! I ended up making a lamb cake this year because my Aunt had the Easter molds already. I have to say, it was pretty cute and yummy also! My Aunt made the poundcake recipe from the 1971 Betty Crocker cookbook!

Your cake looks really cute and I bet it was delicious because the 1971 cookbook, in my opinion, is the best all-around cookbook ever.