Baked Goods

Among the members of Confession Club, cakes, pies and cookies are as much a kind of currency as friendship and forgiveness. The club has its roots in Iris' baking classes, and the weekly meeting are highlighted by fabulous desserts that are always devoured by the group and are as satisfying and praiseworthy and element of the meetings as the confessions themselves. In addition to the specific baked delights mentioned throughout the novel, like Iris' Black Cake she makes for Joanie, Leah's flan, Karen's toffee pie, Rosemary's coconut cake with lemon curd or the countless unattributed cookies on the ever-circulating cookie tray, a local town bakery, Sugarbutter, is also mentioned multiple times. In keeping with the novel's whimsical tone and celebration of friendship and wholesome Midwestern values, the ubiquitous baked goods symbolize the simple pleasures in life whose joys can be unifying and restorative. The emotionally...