Edible Mr. Darcy? Okay....

Though it has been a long while since I've posted an update about my English Lit. class, it hasn't been so long that you've forgotten about it. (I hope) For those of you who are new aboard ship, I teach an English Literature class for two of my younger sisters who are in the late middle school-early highschool age range. We've been going through Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, but I admit to having grown lax in the last several months in my teaching. Yesterday, however, I sat down and planned out a couple of lessons.

I felt it was a befitting way to spend the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice! :) I have been wanting the girls to get through the book a bit quicker than we've done yet. We were reading aloud to each other two chapters each session, and managed a session or two a week. At any rate, we were only at Chapter 20 out of 40-some, so I needed us to pick up the pace. I will assign them 4 chapters a session to have read and take notes on in the off-days, and then we'll come together to do a couple activities, discuss key points, ideas, shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings. 

But to ease the girls into this new regime and to celebrate the bicentennial of such a fabulous book, I decided we'd make Pride and Prejudice cookies...I looked on Pinterest in a lazy moment and saw all sorts of beautiful Jane Austen cookies, but none took my fancy. Okay. So I'd have to be creative on my own. Converting my mad hypothetical-cake-decorating skills (learned from watching too much Cake Boss) into cookie skills, I put together a plan...I made a batch of sugar cookies and cut some into squares, then made a furling banner type thingamabobber out of paper and cut around it with a knife. The cookies were baked, and when they were cool I made a Royal Icing paste. Literally nothing but powdered sugar, egg whites, and water. I iced them carefully and left the icing to harden overnight.

The bigger scheme? Paint favorite quotes from P&P onto the icing with concentrated food coloring. Would it work? I hoped so. 

The girls were monstrously curious over what on earth these rather drab-looking cookies were for. As you can see from my white-board lesson plan, the first activity was for the girls to choose a character from the book and write a congratulatory letter to Jane Austen in that character's "voice". While they did that, I tested my Theory of Decorating...

Nailed it.

I was so thrilled.

The girls were none the wiser yet, and worked away at their card-making:

They nailed it too. :)

Finally I got to show the girls what our next assignment was, and food-dye ink reigned for the next half-hour as we all bent over our cookies and used teeny paintbrushes to endow them with clever sentiments from the novel itself.

We took some license and included a movie quote or two...

I had so much fun making these, and realized that this technique is now for sure going into my Awesomeness Arsenal, to bring out on special occasions like weddings and graduations. Seriously, these would be adorable as wedding favors!

Mine above, Leah's below.

The picture is a little blurry, but it says, "I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in a pretty woman can bestow..." ;)

Aren't they just darling? First day back at class was a smash. :) Thank you, Jesus!