Easter

Easter for me is heavily influenced by family traditions. This is one of my favorite holidays because I've never met anyone who celebrates it with quite the same traditions that have been passed down in my family. That said, I'm sure that a lot of people do celebrate the same way. My family is Polish Catholic. I've tried to discuss how my family celebrates Easter with a few Polish people but they didn't know what I was talking about when I mentioned some of the traditions that my family has. If anyone celebrates the same way or has anything to clarify feel free to add comments and enlighten me.

One thing that we always had was Polish sausage. I mentioned in the Eggs Week post that my mom used to get this from a special store where it was made from scratch and it was made only around Easter. My mom made a sauce that goes with it that I will share with you. She made it this year when she visited. I'll call it Easter Egg Dipping Sauce although I have no idea of the actual name. We're going to ask around the family to see if anyone knows more about the origins of this sauce. Here is the recipe that my mom and I formulated. Just wanted to add to make sure that your sausage is gluten-free if you decide to get some because sometimes sausage has added fillers that aren't GF.

The other thing that we had every year was a lamb cake. I loved this as a kid. I made a gluten-free one this year. I found a recipe for gluten-free pound cake and it tasted good, but the recipe wasn't quite enough to fill the entire lamb cake and it didn't rise to the other side of the lamb pan. To make the lamb cake you need a special lamb cake mold. I swear I've seen one in past years at Williams Sonoma, but my mom said that this year she could only find one at a cake supply store. Here is a picture of the lamb cake.

I didn't have a lot of artistic control over it this year because I was putting my son to bed while it was being decorated, but at least you understand what I am talking about. Pound cake batter is what is used to make the lamb cake. Here are some gluten-free pound cake recipes :

Living Without Gluten-Free Pound Cake Recipe
Gluten Free Easily Perfect Pound Cake Recipe

I used the Perfect Pound Cake recipe from Gluten Free Easily, but it didn't rise enough and didn't make quite enough batter for my needs, so I'll need to either adjust the recipe or try the Living Without recipe next time.

For dinner we usually had lamb chops and mint jelly. A lot of people seem to get ham, but it's really hard to find a gluten-free and nitrate-free ham that is anywhere near reasonably priced so I think that lamb chops are a good gluten-free choice for Easter.

Hope some of these ideas help!