Crescent Roll Carrots

Get creative in the kitchen by making these Crescent Roll Carrots to serve at Easter brunch or lunch. These carrot-shaped crescent rolls can be filled with your favorite egg salad or ham salad and decorated with a sprig of dill or parsley to add a festive touch to your holiday meal.

Originally posted on April 8, 2011

Crescent Roll Carrots - Fun Easter Meal

Your Easter brunch or dinner will be extra special this year if you serve these festive Crescent Roll Carrots filled with egg salad or ham salad. This food craft is so much fun to make, can be enjoyed by the entire family, and will make a great addition to your Easter buffet menu. I've served this cute Easter meal so many times over the years and everyone loves it.

I created this fun crescent roll recipe for Easter back in 2011. I had only been blogging for a short time and knew immediately after making these using Pillsbury Crescent Rolls that they would be a hit with my family and with my readers.

That Easter, my email box was flooded with pictures and stories from readers who had recreated the Crescent Roll Carrots for their own Easter celebrations. I was thrilled. I started adding their pictures to this post, then soon after, in a new Readers' Gallery

I kept this recipe pretty simple by using a Pillsbury Crescent Recipe Creations Seamless Dough Sheet, cutting it into six strips, rolling each strip into a log, then wrapping the strips around metal cream horn forms, brushing them with orange food coloring, and baking them in the oven until golden brown. After removing the pastry from the metal form, I filled some with egg salad and others with ham salad. A few sprigs of dill completed the effect.

I really like how my carrots are bright orange, but I know some people might have issues using straight food coloring on the dough.  You can, if you prefer, just brush them with egg wash and bake them to a golden brown.  They won't have quite the same effect, but will still look great.  I tried adding a small amount of food coloring to the egg wash, but the color didn't show up once baked.

You can also use an all natural orange food coloring.  The color isn't quite as vibrant but your crescent rolls will definitely look like carrots.

Carrot Crescents filled with your favorite egg or ham salad

Ingredients:

1 tube Pillsbury Crescent Recipe Creations Crescent Seamless Dough Sheet*
1 egg (whisked with 1 teaspoon of water to make an egg wash)
yellow and red liquid food coloring (the kind from the grocery store is fine for this recipe)
1 ½ cups of your favorite egg or ham salad
1 bunch of fresh dill or parsley

Special Equipment Needed:

pizza cutter or knife
6 metal cream horn molds
pastry brush
non-stick aluminum foil-lined baking sheet

*If you can't find this product, you can use sheets of puff pastry, or use crescent rolls and pinch all the seams together.

Instructions:

Step 1: Cut Pillsbury Crescent Dough Sheet Into Strips

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Unroll the Pillsbury Crescent Recipe Creations Seamless Dough Sheet onto a cutting board.
• Use a pizza cutter or a knife to cut the dough lengthwise into 6 equal strips.
• Brush one strip with egg wash.

Step 2: Roll Crescent Dough Into Tubes

• Roll the strip into a 17"-18" long log.
  • I rolled the strip of dough up into a tube and pinched the seam shut. Then I rolled out the dough into a thinner, longer log by pushing and rolling the log with both hands.
• Repeat, brushing egg wash onto each dough strip before rolling each into logs.
• Create 6 logs.

Step 3: Wrap Dough Around Cream Horn Forms

• Wrap one crescent dough log around each cream horn mold, trying to keep the seam side against the metal mold.
• Repeat.
• Be sure your dough does not hang over the open end of the cream horn mold, as it will make it difficult to remove once baked.

Step 4: Color Dough Orange

• Line a baking sheet with non-stick aluminum foil or parchment paper (or use a non-stick pan).
• Squeeze about 60 drops of yellow liquid food coloring into a small bowl.  Add two drops of red.  Stir to create orange.
• Brush the orange food coloring all over each carrot-shaped dough.  Set carrots on lined baking sheet.

If you don't want to paint your dough with food coloring, you can simply brush it with egg wash.  The carrot will bake up golden brown.

Watch the video below to see how I used all-natural orange food coloring on one of the crescent roll carrots.

Step 5: Bake

• Bake for 6-8 minutes until golden brown.
  • I suggest rotating the pan halfway through the baking cycle for even browning.
• Allow your carrot crescents to cool for about 5 minutes.
• Carefully remove the cream horn form by holding the carrot in one hand and using the other hand to twist the mold and gently pull it out.

Step 6: Fill the Crescent Roll Carrots with Your Favorite Egg Salad or Ham Salad and Sprigs of Dill or Parsley

• Spoon some egg salad or ham salad into the crescent roll cone until it's a bit overfilled.
  • I simply stir some Miracle Whip into my diced eggs to make egg salad. The simple 2 ingredient egg salad is what I grew up eating and I still love it today.
  • I buy my ham salad at my local gourmet grocery store. It's so good that I've never bothered making my own.
  • If you have great egg salad and ham salad recipes, definitely use them!
• Press a few sprigs of dill or parsley into the egg salad for a decorative effect.

It's best to fill your carrots just before serving, but they will keep nicely for up to a few hours in the refrigerator. You can store any leftovers in the refrigerator for up to two days.

Video

[adthrive-in-post-video-player video-id="cfNp1Dzx" upload-date="2017-02-27T19:38:34.000Z" name="Crescent Roll Carrots" description="Turn store bought crescent roll dough into fun carrots filled with egg salad for Easter brunch." player-type="default" override-embed="default"]

 Items used to create this project that are available on Amazon.com (commission earned for sales at no extra cost to you).

Crescent Roll Carrots Recipe

5 from 13 votes

Print

Crescent Roll Carrots Filled with Egg or Ham Salad

Prep Time

37 mins

Cook Time

8 mins

Total Time

45 mins

 

Bright orange carrot shaped crescent rolls can be filled with your favorite egg or ham salad.

Course: Lunch

Cuisine: American

Keyword: carrot crescent roll, crescent roll, easter appetizer

Servings: 8

Author: Beth Jackson Klosterboer

Ingredients

• 1 tube Pillsbury Crescent Recipe Creations Crescent Seamless Dough Sheet
• 1 egg whisked with 1 teaspoon of water
• orange or yellow and red liquid food coloring
• 1 ½ cups of your favorite egg or ham salad
• 1 bunch of fresh dill or parsley

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Unroll the Pillsbury Crescent Recipe Creations Seamless Dough Sheet onto a cutting board.
3. Cut the dough lengthwise into 6 equal strips.
4. Brush one strip with egg wash.
5. Roll the strips into a 17"-18" long log.
6. Wrap one dough log around each cream horn mold.
7. Repeat.
8. Line a baking sheet with non-stick aluminum foil or parchment paper.
9. Brush the orange food coloring over each carrot shaped dough.
10. Set carrots on lined baking sheet.
11. Bake for 6-8 minutes until golden brown.
12. Allow carrot crescents to cool for about 5 minutes.
13. Remove cream horn form and allow to cool completely.
14. Fill each Crescent Roll Carrot with egg salad or ham salad.
15. Add a few sprigs of dill coming out of the carrot.
16. Serve.

More Easter Edible Crafts
from Hungry Happenings 

Baby Chick Cheese Balls

Carrot Top Cupcakes

Homemade Sour Gummy Bunnies

Chocolate Bunny Silhouettes

Easter Egg Veggie Pizza

Coconut Cake Ball Chicks

Down the Bunny Hole Push-up Pops

Sugar Spoon Chicks - tiny sugar eggs on spoons

If this Easter Recipe interests you, then you should go and check out all these other delicious ideas.

UPDATE:

I heard from so many people who were making this recipe for their Easter meal and some took pictures and posted them on their blogs. Whether you have a blog or not, if you made these and took some pictures, I'd love to see them. You can see more creations from my readers in my Readers' Gallery.

This idea has been translated in so many ways as you can see from the pictures below, and it is so wonderful for me to see how I inspired so many of you to make these for your families.

Risa from Restless Risa posted a few pictures of the carrots she served her family for Easter. She used frozen bread dough instead of crescents and lettuce in place of the dill. They look great. As you can see, you can really use whatever you have on hand. Most doughs will work for this recipe but just be aware that the yeast-type doughs will rise once they are wrapped around the cream horn forms which makes for carrots with fun curvy shapes. To top off the carrot, anything that is green and frilly could be used - try cilantro, thyme, or even spinach leaves.

Martha from Seaside Simplicity made her carrots by spraying Duff's Orange Cake Graffiti Spray on the dough and I think they look fantastic. Martha didn't have cream horn forms so she wrapped her dough around a sugar cone as I had suggested in the comments section of the blog post, and it worked. I'm happy to know that it was a success.

Shannon from Living My Life on Purpose did a fantastic job re-creating these carrots using Pillsbury Crescent Rolls which she pinched together at the seams before cutting into strips. She filled her Crescent Roll Carrots with chicken salad and added sprigs of curly endive lettuce.

Seeing someone from across the ocean create something based on one of my recipes is always such a huge thrill. Cinzia from Italy shared her version of the carrots on her blog, Mammarum. She used Puff Pastry to make her carrots, filled them with cream cheese, and used chives for the greens.

Joyce from What Happens at Grandma's hosted a "Bunny Village Workshop" hosted for her daughters and grandkids and served these chicken salad stuffed crescent carrots with parsley greens.

Mari from Inspired by Family Magazine created a really cool twist to this recipe; she made calzone carrots using homemade dough. I absolutely love this recipe.

Sylvia stuffed her carrots with scrambled eggs and sausage. Being the carrots aren't very big, they didn't hold much of chunky filling but she said they made a great breakfast. Her kids thought they were cute, even though they weren't sure about the orange color at first. Once they tasted them and realized they just tasted like croissants they really enjoyed them!

 Rady from Byby's Kingdom made these really fun-looking carrots. I like how they have a striped look. She filled her carrots with egg salad and dill.

Mary served this basket full of carrot crescents to her family who gobbled them up immediately. Mary used Pillsbury Crescent Rolls which she just wrapped around the cream horn form before coloring orange. It's a bit simpler than cutting dough strips and gives a smoother look to the carrots.

Mary told me this recipe will become a new Easter tradition with her family!

Trish from Sweetology shared her carrots with her Facebook friends and said, "I whipped these up so easy from store-bought crescent rolls and homemade yummy ham salad..they will be a hit! CUTE."

Andrea made a really quick and easy version of the carrots. She used the big flaky crescents, rolled them just a bit straighter, baked them, and then cut them in half to fill them with the salad.

Jenn served up this bushel of carrots at her Easter celebration and said they were a huge hit!

Mandy was sure busy in the kitchen creating this amazing platter full of chicken salad-filled carrot crescents topped with curly parsley.

Jo and Sue created cones out of tin foil to make their carrots which they filled with salmon that their dad had smoked, and mixed with cream cheese. You should visit their blog to see more of their festive Easter treats. They really went all out for this holiday.

I am in awe of this gorgeous display that Ekaterina of My Candy Kitchen created with her carrot crescents. Just beautiful! She used pizza dough to make her carrots and covered her cream horn forms with parchment paper for easy removal.

Dina served these for Easter to her family in Hungary. She used puff pastry which worked out great. To make her orange coloring, she added red coloring to an egg yolk - brilliant!

I just love this image of the carrots created by Ilina from Culinary Colours of My World.  She used pizza dough to create her carrots, filled them with a traditional Bulgarian salad, and added sprigs of lettuce for the greens.

I look forward to seeing how you use this idea to inspire you in the kitchen too!

• Author
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Beth Klosterboer

Hi, I'm Beth Jackson Klosterboer, a professional chocolatier & baker, cookbook author, and event planner. I love sharing recipes for happy occasions here on Hungry Happenings. I also create easy fudge recipes to share at HowToMakeEasyFudge.com, rice krispie treat recipes at HowToMakeCerealTreats.com, and easy cookie recipes at HowToMakeEasyCookies.com

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