Why is carrot cake an Easter dessert of choice? Don’t get me wrong, it’s one of my favorite baked goods, and I make it year round. I’m happy to have an occasion where it’s a focus food. Why, though, is it associated with Easter?
I fear it’s some sort of carrots = bunny = Easter thing, but I certainly hope that isn’t it.
I have never had carrot cake on Easter. I’m making a sweet potato pie for my FIL this year.
You fear correctly. It is indeed carrots = bunny = Easter Thing so you can blame Bugs Bunny for this. He is the primary reason we associate Carrots with Rabbits. (Though not the only reason).
New to me, too.
I said out loud “Because Bugs loves carrots!”
But add me to the ‘never heard of it’ category. Hot Cross Buns* are the only dessert-y thing I’ve seen connected to Easter.
We often do chocolate (because of chocolate bunnies? Doubt it. Wejustlove chocolate…). My wife loves to make a torte or a ganache.
…
*Can I just take a moment to thank Jesus for dying on a cross? Just sayin’, Hot Electric Chair Buns would be a lot tougher to pull off…
I was not aware of the association myself until a few years ago. I re-noticed it this morning at the grocery store where they had dozens of them at the entrance doors and on a display table at the rear of the store. I asked google about it, and it returned dozens of pages about how carrot cake is “the” dessert for Easter.
I was hoping the rationale was something like carrots are ready for harvesting in some particular location around the equinox, or is some spring rebirth thing I had never heard of. Nope - simple commercialism. Or the Warner Brothers.
There are so many things associated with this weekend that have absolutely nothing to do with someone getting nailed to a tree and getting over it three (two?) days later. Don’t get me started on “Good” Friday…
Never heard of it, either. My family is Polish, so they’ll do babka or mazurek, but I don’t recall any of my non-Polish friends ever having carrot cake for Easter, nor have I noticed it in pop culture. I’m sure it’s a thing, I’m just unaware of it (minus this thread.)
Nailed to a tree? That’s a new association / twist unto itself.
Have you tried to make a cake out of rabbits?
Also, insert Eddie Izzard Easter thingy here.
Funny thing is that it’s just a combination of two things the Bible says. The specifics in the gospels say he was nailed to a cross, but it’s also more poetically rendered as “hung on a tree.”
(And, of course, there are tons of literalists trying arguing which it was, or coming up with ways it could be both.)
Everyone needs to read that thread as an Easter Sunday devotional.
Only then, my child, will you truly understand:
I can’t be the only one introduced in the school yard to what the alternative to making the sign of the cross would be if Jesus had been stoned to death? (Makes two fists and mimes being pelted with stones)
There’s a good reference to “nailed to a tree” in one of the Hitchhiker’s books:
spoiler:
Then the Earth gets destroyed
Brian
Yeah, there are tons and tons of Christian theological references, hymns, etc., that refer to the cross as a “tree”.
“Cross of Christ, O Sacred Tree”
“Alas, and did my Savior bleed? […] He groaned upon the tree”
“His sacrifice on Calvary/ Has made the mighty cross a tree of life to me”
It also makes a nice parallel in Christian doctrine between the motif of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that led to humanity’s fall, and the Tree of Life or cross that led to humanity’s redemption.
So maybe the question is less “why?” but “where?”
It seems like this is a tradition not universal. Is there a regionality or cultural specificity to this as “the” Easter dessert?
And to further educate those of us who have never celebrated the holiday - is there a consensus as to whether or not brunch or dinner is the major getting together meal to celebrate the day?
A quick google comes up with this about carrot cake:
Also this on its history in general. It seems to have taken off in to '50s with oil-based cakes becoming popular and then cream cheese frosting applied to it in the '60s made it an American classic anyway.
I’m a bit surprised its association as a Spring time dessert doesn’t have older origins. It seems to me like there would be few fresh fruits available in early spring and carrots likely stored better over winter.
Weird. I lived in Hungary for 5 years, and never noticed carrot cake around Easter time. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever had a carrot cake while I lived there. ETA: That was around 20 years ago, and the article does say “more and more” and that it’s “untraditional” so things have perhaps changed a bit in that time.
This I do remember, though:
Otherwise, they usually put freshly baked bread, Easter lamb, hard-boiled eggs, various types of ham, sausages and braided brioche at the center of the table during the holiday.
I associate carrot cake at Easter with grocery store bakery sections. Carrot cake with icing carrot decorations are available year-round but get grouped with Easter cookies and other seasonal specialties around this time of year because of that decoration. I think people just took this as a cue that carrot cake was a traditional Easter dessert.