November 02
Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna von Habsburg-Lothringen 's Birthday
 

Kirsten Dunst as Marie Antoinnete

Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna von Habsburg-Lothringen was born an Archduchess of Austria.  When she came to France in a gilded carriage to marry the Dauphin , she was a spoiled, vivacious, thirteen-year-old girl urrounded by a  three-hundred-forty Hapsburg courtiers and servants. When she left France and life twenty years later, she was a white-haired, half-blind woman dragged to the guillotine in the back of a manure cart.

Marie Antoinette was married at fifteen to the fourteen-year-old fat, and impotent, Dauphin (the latter problem was surgically corrected seven years late). Their wedding took place on May 16, 1770, in the palace of Versailles, after which was the ritual bedding. It was assumed  that consummation of the marriage would take place on the wedding night which couldn't happen. The lack of consummation would plague the reputation of both the Dauphin and Dauphine for seven years.

Marie Antoinette was noted for her childlike disregard of anything that did not touch her life personally or give her pleasure. Artifice was here drug and never was artifice more dramatically demonstrated than in the creation of her famous Petit Hameau (The Little Hamlet), a pastoral recreation of French farm life; a life-size, living peasant doll farm, comprised of eight miniature peasant farmhouses, with thatched roofs, farmyards, and perfumed dung-heaps.

Marie Antoinette has been portrayed in more than 30 films films including memorable performances by Norma Shearer (her favorite role) in Marie Antoinette (1938), Lise Delamare in Jean Renoir's La Marseillaise (1938),Nancy Guild in Orson Welles's Black Magic (1949), Lana Marconi in Royal Affairs in Versailles (1957), Nikki Fritz in The Exotic Time Machine (1997), Joely Richardson in The Affair of the Necklace (2001), and Kirsten Dunst in Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006). A success in France. but not in the US, Coppola's film provided the greatest insights into the self-absorbed adolescent queen.

Marie had a passion for elaborate deserts, a passion that Sophia Coppola referenced so visually in Marie Antoinette which we suggest watching today as we celebrate the queen's birthday with the regal Gateau Marie Antoinette.

 

Gateau Marie Antoinette
 (Marie Antoinette's Cake)

 

Ingredients
 

1 package of ladyfingers
1 cup & 2 TB unsalted (sweet) butter
1&1/2 cups finely ground almonds
1 tsp vanilla dash of salt
6 TB Kirsch
 

3 cups whipping cream
6 TB confectioners sugar
1 doz fresh ripe strawberries
1 doz candied violets *

 
* You can also order these from Candy's Confections on the Internet (http://www.candysconfections.com).

Instructions
 
  1. Split ladyfingers lengthwise. Line the sides and bottom of a 9" springform cake pan with wax paper.
  2. Stand cut ladyfingers around outside of pan, uncut side facing the outside of the pan.
  3. Cream butter and sugar . Add salt and almonds. Beat with an electric mixer for 3 minutes. Add vanilla and Kirsch.
  4. In another bowl, beat 2 cups whipping cream until stiff. Add confectioners sugar and beat until very stiff. Fold whipped cream mixture into almond/butter mixture. Spoon mixture into cakepan. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 10 hours.
  5. Whip remaining 1 cup of whipped cream. Remove sides of cakepan and invert on a serving plate. Remove wax paper.
  6. Frost with whipped cream. Decorate with strawberries and candied violets (optional).

© 2011 Gordon Nary and Tyler Stokes