Dickinson loved the warm satisfaction of a completed bake almost as much as the challenge of a well-crafted poem. She used family bakeware like this to make her popular Coconut Cake and her round loaf of Indian and Rye bread, which won second prize in the Amherst Cattle Show of 1856. According to Dickinson, her finished gingerbread “triumphed” (L369) and her twin loaves of bread were “the glory” (L36).
Emily Dickinson to T.W. Higginson (L342a), August 16, 1870, in The Letters of Emily Dickinson, ed. Thomas H. Johnson (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1958), 2:472.
Emily Dickinson to Elizabeth Holland (L369), late November 187, in Ibid, 2:492.
Emily Dickinson to Abiah Root (L36), May 7, 1850, in Ibid, 1:97.
