Baking & the Big Screen: Muffins & The Importance of Being Earnest
Sometimes, I watch a movie and find inspiration within it to bake something. Other times, I stumble upon an amazing recipe and search for way too long to find a movie that maybe, just maybe, has that baked good in it. This combination was definitely the latter. And it didn’t even fully work, but I learned that a bit too late. See, I made these amazing cinnamon roll muffins (twice) and googled for a couple of days in hopes of finding muffins in a movie. Surprise, surprise - a version of The Importance of Being Earnest popped up, and with a whole scene about muffins! But, after baking them, and renting the movie, I got to the scene and realized a slight screw up - they seem to have meant English muffins. I’m still gonna roll with it, because at the very least, more people need to know about these muffins. And this movie.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Starring Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Frances O’Connor, Reese Witherspoon, Judi Dench
Director: Oliver Parker
Released in 2002
Available to rent on iTunes, Vudu and Amazon
First things first, you have to know that The Importance of Being Earnest is a very silly, satirical play to begin with. Without recognizing and appreciating that, you will fully hate this movie. However, if you keep that in mind, and can get past whatever accent Reese Witherspoon seems to think she’s doing, it is an utter delight. Thankfully, this play is already on the shorter side, so an hour and a half within this story is just enough time. Any longer and it would go from amusingly absurd to exhausting. Colin Firth and Rupert Everett play two British gents who have invented people (one, a friend named Bunbury, the other, a miscreant brother named Earnest) to get them out of appointments they don’t wish to keep and get them to places they’d rather be.
Silly, right? But what happens, if one of them assumes the invented persona the other man created just as said man had decided to kill him off? And what if there were two engagements that included utterly silly girls and determinations to marry men named Earnest? And if there was not one, but two (!) cases of mistaken identities? Oh yes, it’s a very, very silly time. However, from what I remember about seeing the play roughly a decade ago, it’s a really fantastic adaptation. Is it perfect? Definitely not. But is it worth devoting some time and $3 to? Oh, for sure.
Now, you know what may be perfect? These cinnamon roll muffins. We’re going to move past the fact that technically I should have made English muffins (maybe later this month, okay?). The most important thing is that these muffins are better than almost any store-bought or bakery muffins I’ve ever had, which is saying something, because this recipe has zero chocolate and I will all but go into debt over some good chocolate chip muffins. They’re small, they taste amazing with the hint of cream cheese icing (I recommend using a piping bag and making it a small drizzle across the muffin top) and I have yet to share these muffins with anyone who didn’t truly love them. So sit back, enjoy a silly movie and indulge in a treat that can totally count as a breakfast despite tasting decadent enough for a dessert.