Baking With Emily Dickinson at Lit Hub

As we slide further into the holiday season, it's worth venturing over to Literary Hub where Emily Temple has compiled seven tasty baking recipes by none other than the great poet (and baker) Emily Dickinson. As Temple notes: "It’s fairly common knowledge these days that everyone’s first favorite poet Emily Dickinson was also no slouch in the kitchen. In fact, as others have pointed out, in her lifetime she was almost certainly more famous for being a baker than she was for being a poet." As they say, the proof is in the pudding... or at least in this delicious coconut cake recipe, with poem on the reverse:

Coconut Cake:

1 cup coconut
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar

According to the Emily Dickinson Museum website, Dickinson wrote many poems in the kitchen—often on the backs of labels, recipes and other papers, and these reveal that the kitchen “was a space of creative ferment for her, and that the writing of poetry mixed in her life with the making of delicate treats.” After all, what better way to fill the long interval between putting something good in the oven and getting to eat it? Indeed, on the back of this recipe for coconut cake, apparently passed on to her by a Mrs. Carmichael, Dickinson drafted a poem:

The Things that never can come back, are several —
Childhood — some forms of Hope — the Dead —
Though Joys — like Men — may sometimes make a Journey —
And still abide —
We do not mourn for Traveler, or Sailor,
Their Routes are fair —
But think enlarged of all that they will tell us
Returning here —
“Here!” There are typic “Heres” —
Foretold Locations —
The Spirit does not stand —
Himself — at whatsoever Fathom
His Native Land —

There are six more where that came from, including a black cake weighing in at a mighty 20 pounds. Head to Lit Hub to savor it all.