This week, we celebrate Emily Dickinson’s 183rd birthday. What better way to celebrate the poet than by baking her famous Black Cake? A group of Charlottesville poets-turned-bakers let us join them for their “Fourth Annual Emily Dickinson Birthday Party.”
Emily Dickinson was not only a prolific poet, but she was also a very industrious baker. A few years ago, cultural historian Addeane Kelley came across a newspaper article that had a recipe for Emily’s “Black Cake”.
Credit Wikimedia Commons
Now. every year for Emily’s birthday, Addeane and a few friends gather at the home of Diane Ober and John Alexander to make copious amounts of this brandy-soaked fruit cake.