Austentatious Desserts: Characters and Menu Choices

Elizabeth Bennet has been delighting readers for centuries. Austen's "rather too bright and sparkling" book Pride and Prejudice is also one of the favorites of film adaptors. Lizzie is beautiful, intelligent and witty, perhaps a little too trusting of her first impressions and cleverness for discerning others' characters. Her most famous misjudgment is of course of Mr Darcy, her future husband.

To him later she says, "The fact is, that you were sick of civility, of deference, of officious attention. You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. I roused, and interested you, because I was so unlike them. Had you not been really amiable you would have hated me for it... you thoroughly despised the persons who so assiduously courted you."
These brown-butter sea salt chocolate chip cookies are particularly apt to carry her name because they are firm on the outside, but soft on the inside; sweet and salty; and hard to put down, just like Pride and Prejudice itself.

Emma Woodhouse is the heroine of Emma. Emma is considered by many scholars to be the perfect example of the novel-- a fairly new genre at the time. The action revolves solely around the interactions of characters in their everyday lives.

The novel opens with this line: "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her." But immediately upon finishing this statement, Austen explains that she lost her mother at a young age, her sister left her alone with an overly solicitous father, and she was about to lose her closest friend, her governess, to marriage. Life was not all roses.
These snickerdoodles are made with brown butter, lending them a caramel flavor as well as the usual sugar cookie taste. They are rolled in sugar and cinnamon, as Emma's life is both sweet and difficult.

Isabella Thorpe is one of the most memorable characters from Austen's (first-written but late-published) Northanger Abbey. The heroine, Catherine Morland, is a sweet and utterly genuine soul who is delighted to make friends with Isabella Thorpe and takes some time (certainly longer than it would take Elizabeth Bennett) to figure out that Isabella is a manipulative, frivolous and mercenary young woman. Isabella's object is to find a rich and handsome husband, and she has no true affection or love for anyone else.

As she flirts with Captain Tilney while engaged to James Morland: "My heart, indeed! What can you have to do with hearts? You men have none of you any hearts."
These "man-catcher" brownies were featured in the Washington Post here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/06/AR2007020600438.html and quickly became a hit.

Mary Crawford is a character not unlike Isabella in her aims, but higher class and more sophisticated. She would probably turn up her nose at simpler desserts, but lemon squares are right up her alley. She is a tempting but sour treat!

Mary hardly conceals her desire for Tom Bertram's death (in order that the man who loves her, Edmund, will be the new heir): "To have such a fine young man cut off in the flower of his days, is most melancholy. Poor Sir Thomas will feel in dreadfully... If he is to died, there will be two poor young men less in the world; and with a fearless face and bold voice I say to any one, that wealth and consequence could fall into no hands more deserving of them."
Lemon squares are a favorite for bridal showers and other events where your guests may want a little tangy flavor instead of a straight-up sweetness.

Harry Dashwood is the (probably bratty) child of Fanny and John Dashwood. He is the reason that Fanny convinces John to do nothing to help his stepmother and two stepsisters.

In the awesome second chapter of Sense and Sensibility, readers are treated to an amazing display of manipulation in Henry's name: "To take three thousand pounds from the fortune of their dear little boy, would be impoverishing him to the most dreadful degree. She begged him [John] to think again on the subject. How could he answer it to himself to rob his child, and his only child too, of so large a sum?... why was he to ruin himself, and their poor little Harry, by giving away all his money to his half sisters?"
Harry would like M&Ms. You can just tell.

Mr Collins is a delightful character from Pride and Prejudice. Naming a dessert after him is difficult because there are just so many different qualities to convey... his subtle arrogance, his sniveling suck-up-ism (yes, that is a word) to Lady Catherine and any other member of a higher class, or his social awkwardness could all lend themselves to certain desserty tendencies. In the end, I knew I had to go with something with nuts.

In his first meeting at the Bennet family, Mr Collins reveals that he knows how to win the ladies: "These are the kind of little things which please her ladyship, and it is a sort of attention which I conceive myself peculiarly bound to pay... thought I sometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to give them as unstudied an air as possible."
These Pecan Blondies with browned sugar icing are sweet-- overly sweet, to my taste-- just as false compliments are. They have a nice browned-butter frosting, and are full of pecans. I like to think of the pecan on top as a little vicar's hat.

The Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne, are the heroines of Sense and Sensibility. I wanted to keep them together because you really are just as invested in them both-- unlike, I think, P&P where you're much more interested in what happens with Elizabeth than Jane! These are also some of my favorite cookies-- Maple Oatmeal Raisin Cookies.

Once Marianne has come to see the wisdom of witholding emotions once in a while, she says, "I compare it [her behavior] with what it ought to have been; I compare it with yours." "Our situations have borne little resemblance" (is Elinor's reply). "They have borne more than our conduct."
The oats and raisins offer nutrition and substance, as Elinor is a consistent example of virtue and self-control. The maple glaze is a melt-in-your-mouth sweetness, echoing Marianne's total teenager-ness. She's impulsive in love, but utterly genuine.

Colonel Brandon ends up with Marianne in Sense and Sensibility. She is almost like his prize for being basically the best, most honorable man in the book. A lot of people, including my friend Bethany, wish that he ended up with Elinor. It's not really portrayed in any of the movies, but in the book, people are talking about that as if it's a very likely match-- even though neither Elinor nor Colonel Brandon think so themselves. His age and temper and much closer to Elinor's, but he loves the spirit and passion of Marianne; and in time, Marianne grows to love him.

"Colonel Brandon was now as happy, as all those who best loved him, believed he deserved to be;-- in Marianne he was consoled for every past affliction;... Marianne could never love by halves; and her whole heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband, as it had once been to Willoughby."
Harvest Loaf Bread/Muffins (Pumpkin with chocolate chips) is the treat for the Colonel because it is a specialty of the fall (he is a much older man) and paired with chocolate (sweet, unexpected).

Austentatious Desserts