What to Bake for Easter? (Sweet or Savoury)

Are you still deciding what to bake for Easter this year? Here are some of our favorite Easter bakes, either sweet or savory. From traditional Easter cakes to buns and pies, just have a pick!

Sweet or Savory Easter baking recipes

Easter is a few days away. And with it, spring is coming as well. A time for lighter dishes, for a lot of green stuff in your food, for fresh seasonal ingredients like rhubarb, asparagus, or strawberries.

But before we get there, we still have to get over the Easter festivities. A lot of food again: appetizers, soups, lamb, stews, lots and lots of different dishes, many of them traditional food cooked only for Easter.

I love baking, so I thought about creating a list containing some of our favorite Easter baking recipes. Sweet or savory, I bake at least 2 or 3 of these recipes every year. My family loves them all; I hope you will find something you like as well.

Bakes using mini eggs

Let's start with some delicious and pretty Easter-themed bakes made with pastel-colored mini eggs or similar products. My kids adore anything made with mini eggs, so I must try at least one new recipe every year.

1. Mini Egg Cheesecake

This decadent, silky-smooth cheesecake is the perfect treat for Easter: creamy and sweet yet refreshing and light. And the best part? You can whip it up in only 30 minutes, place it in the refrigerator overnight and have it ready for the celebrations.

2. Easter Mini Egg Cookie Bars

Another quick and delicious treat. These bars are sweet and full of chocolate, making a wonderful gift. They also keep well so that you can munch on them for days.

3. Mini Egg Cookies

Probably my favorite dessert made with mini eggs. These cookies are crispy on the edges, softer in the middle, oozing with white and dark chocolate, and crunchy thanks to those pastel Cadbury eggs.

Bakes using carrots (or spinach)

Carrot cakes are perfect for Easter. But not only. There are so many amazing sweet carrot recipes out there; I keep trying new ones every few months or so.

4. Easy Carrot Cake Traybake

This easy traybake is one of our newest discoveries. It's moist and spicy, packed with walnuts, and covered with a luxurious cream cheese frosting. You should make it in advance; it tastes even better the next day.

5. The Best Carrot Coconut Cake

I am not kidding! This is the best carrot cake! I've been baking this recipe regularly for over 15 years now; I’ve been making it for the kids or guests, bringing it to parties, etc. Despite its simplicity, it is a hit every single time; I can't even recall how many times I had to scribble down the recipe.

6. Carrot Almond Cake

A festive-looking cake perfect for the celebrations. The moist carrot cake and almond base is filled with a wonderfully aromatic orange filling made with freshly squeezed orange juice, orange zest, and whipped heavy cream.

7. Eggless Carrot Cake (Vegan)

A vegan version of carrot cake, moist, sweet, and super easy to make. This soft and comforting cake is packed with coconut and topped with jam; a simple delight ready in less than one hour.

8. Nigella's Carrot Cake Muffins

This is our favorite recipe for carrot cake cupcakes. Moist and tasty and, when eaten without the icing, not overly sweet. The walnuts add a wonderful crunch, and the topping makes them creamy and luxurious.

9. Carrot Muffins with Blueberry Frosting

These cinnamon-spiced carrot muffins with a soft and creamy buttercream blueberry frosting are some of our favorite muffins. They were described as “Megageil,” which you could approximately translate as mega-awesome, mega sexy, mega attractive, or, better, a mixture of these words.

10. Carrot Cookies with Orange Icing

These carrot cookies with orange icing are everything a cookie should be: sweet, flavorful, and completely comforting.

11. Spinach Cake (with White Chocolate Frosting)

There are no carrots this time, but spinach instead; this green cake is perfect for Easter. A unique cake that celebrates spring!

Traditional Easter Bakes

I grew up in Romania, but I've been living in Germany for the past decades, so I am an expert in Easter celebrations in both of these countries. Here are some of our favorite traditional bakes or typical cakes to bake for Easter.

12. Cozonac Recipe

There is probably no other Romanian recipe that people bake (or buy) more often during Easter or Christmas time. My grandma never baked anything except cozonac, twice a year, and not just for the two of us, but for the rest of the family as well; she was the expert!

13. Beigli - Traditional Hungarian Nut Roll

And here is the Hungarian version of a sweet bread filled with nuts. Maybe the Hungarian beigli was the inspiration for the Romanian cozonac, I cannot say, but they are both really delicious! You will find similar pastry rolls filled with poppy seeds or walnuts all over Eastern Europe, so I think it would be tough to determine where exactly they originate from.

14. Polish Poppy Seed Roll - Makowiec Recipe

This excellent roll is another version (Polish) of the typical sweet bread baked all over Eastern Europe for Easter or Christmas. Filled with poppy seeds, nuts, and dried fruit, this roll is perfect with a cup of tea or coffee.

15. Pasca - Romanian Easter Bread

Pasca is a traditional Romanian Easter cheesecake or Easter bread. The sweet yeast dough is filled with a smooth cheese and raisins filling. Pasca, cozonac,  lamb, and eggs are the most important culinary components of the Orthodox Easter celebrations.

16. German Cheesecake

The famous German cheesecake or Käsekuchen. This traditional quark cheesecake can be served with or without the meringue topping. I prefer it with the topping; it makes everything complete.

17. Crustless Cheesecake

Another German-style cheesecake, this time baked without a crust, which makes it even easier and lighter. You will only need 15 minutes to stir it! The result: the most delicious baked cheesecake you could make.

18. Blitzkuchen - German Coffee Cake

This Blitzkuchen or lightning cake is a delicious, soft German coffee cake with almond sugar topping, ready in less than 30 minutes.

19. German Black Forest Cake

THE German cake, the most famous of them all! Try this authentic recipe for Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte; you will love it!

20. Strawberry Yogurt Cheesecake

This is not a specific German Easter bake, but it's an example of the typical cake we love in Germany; we bake this kind of cheesecake topped with berries or fruit all the time, for any type of festivity or just on a Sunday to have with a cup of coffee.

There are so many other amazing cakes, pies, or muffins that you could bake for Easter that it's impossible to list them all here. For more inspiration, check the Sweet Recipes category.

Savory Easter Bakes

Now that we've seen some of my family's favorite sweet bakes for Easter, let's get to the "Savory" part.

21. Feta and Spinach Triangles

Let's start with something super simple and ready in no time. These delicious little puff pastry bites are filled with spinach, feta, and herbs.

22. Puff Pastry Spanakopita

This simplified recipe for Greek spanakopita is made with puff pastry instead of phyllo. A fantastic treat, perfect for the Easter brunch.

23. Green Bread with Spinach

Green bread with spinach and pepitas, a fluffy, savory bread perfect for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

24. Green Onion Quiche (with Cheese)

This quiche is quick to make, yet it makes an impression most of the time. It’s an excellent choice for a brunch or light dinner, and I love to bake it around Easter time.

25. Chicken and Leek Pie

A great recipe for a light Easter lunch or dinner. If you don't want to make lamb, go for this fantastic pie, everybody will love it!

26. Spinach Borek - Turkish Spinach Pie

This spinach borek or Turkish spinach pie with feta and phyllo pastry is one of the most irresistible boreks. An excellent choice for a vegetarian Easter.

27. Overnight Yeast Rolls

Easy and quick to make overnight yeast rolls. Keep the dough refrigerated until the morning and bake before the breakfast or brunch starts.Only five ingredients.

28. Homemade Yeast Rolls

These are the softest, fluffiest yeast rolls I have ever made. An easy-to-make recipe for dinner rolls perfect for any occasion.

29. Breakfast Crescent Rolls (Romanian Cornuri Simple)

These typical Romanian rolls or cornuri simple are the fluffiest, best crescent rolls I’ve ever tasted! They are perfect for a festive breakfast.

30. Homemade Cheese Buns

These German-style cheese buns are soft and savory, packed with cheese, and rolled into more cheese. You will love every single bite.

31. Romanian Pretzels - Covrigei

These Romanian pretzels or covrigei are one of the most famous Romanian snacks - cheesy, crunchy, and addictive pastry. My grandma used to make them every year for Easter.

32. Romanian Cheese Crackers - Saratele

Very cheesy, shortcrust homemade cheese crackers sprinkled with caraway seeds or salt or even sesame seeds, a perfect appetizer for any party – Romanian saratele.

I hope you liked checking all these Easter baking recipes and that you found a few good ideas for this year's celebrations. Happy Easter!