Easter is for baking too

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: Perhaps it’s the weather, the twitter of springtime. And today is Easter Sunday. But the approach of Easter has never inspired cooks to stay in the kitchen and light the oven with the fervour that accompanies the Christmas holiday season.

Decorating eggs and buying chocolate ones, not baking rafts of cookies and soaking dense fruitcakes, are what Easter is about.

Even in Italy, the country with perhaps the richest and most varied Easter baking traditions, some of the pies and savoury pizza rusticas are meant for a picnic, the Easter Monday outing. And these specialties are often purchased in bakeries, not made at home.

Fabio Trabocchi, the chef at Fiamma, who is from Osimo, a town in the region of the Marche in central Italy, recalled that as a child, he and his sister would go to the bakery to pick out the pizza al formaggio, a kind of rich, eggy cheese bread that was served with scrambled eggs seasoned with mint for Easter breakfast, and with salami for lunch.

“In the old days women would bake the pizza al formaggio at home,” he said. “But mostly you buy it. Modern life is everywhere.”

In the limited Swiss repertory, there is a custard tart, with rice, lemon and almonds in the filling, which is served only at Easter. “It was called gâteau de Pâques and I remember it very well,” said Gray Kunz, the chef who was born in Singapore but grew up in Geneva and Bern. “There would be a bunny in icing sugar stenciled on top. It was something from the bakery.”

During Lent, Christian families traditionally did not eat animal products, even eggs, making these foods all the more important for Easter celebrations.

The cook was kept busy preparing for an Easter table laden with lamb and pork, cured meats and egg-rich dishes, often brightened with spring greens and herbs. Dessert was secondary to the indulgence of the meal.

Today, generous pastries and pizzas layered with meats, cheeses and vegetables meant to anchor a lunch emerge from Italian ovens. Breads golden with egg yolks, sometimes baked with dyed hard-cooked eggs embedded in them, are typical not just of Italy, but also of many other countries, including those that, like Greece, celebrate Orthodox Easter.