In Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre baking and cakes are always associated with happiness and warmth. The scene where Jane and her friend Ellen share tea, toast and seed cake in front of the fire with their teacher Miss Temple is one of the most memorable scenes in the book, perhaps in all Victorian literature. Here is a picture of Jane-Eyre-inspired tea sandwiches I found in the Huffington Post.

Jane bakes when she is happy -- puddings, cakes, creams; as a child, we know how miserable she is with her evil cousins and Aunt when she is unable to eat the pastry inside her favorite plate with the blue bird design. Similarly, the emotionally starved Lucy Snowe from Charlotte Bronte's Villette and Catherine Earnshaw from Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, neither bake nor cook. Despite the abundant food around them, their unhappy fate makes the poor young women unable to share in the beauty of food.

Baking in literature is not always positive. In George Eliot's Middlemarch it is associated with scenes of repression, and the same goes for Colleen McCullough's Thornbirds. Fiona Cleary is exhausted by tough housework by the time the family comes in for lunch; in fact, roly-poly is the only dish she can enjoy, because it is the last dish and she won't have to worry about needing to rise and serve the next dish to the family.

Baking in literature shows all the complexity of (a woman's) life. It is never all about a picture of saccharine bliss, but is about hope and hard work. In Anne of Green Gables, Marilla's cakes and cordials show not only her housekeeping skills, but also her eager and well-ordered mind. Even Fiona Cleary finds an understanding with her well-meaning husband towards the end.

And I would love to have some of that roly-poly she bakes for Sunday table!