Fig Cake
1 cupful sugar 3 eggs 1 cupful milk 2 teaspoonfuls powdered cinnamon 3 cupfuls flour 1/2 cupful Crisco 3 teaspoonfuls baking powder 1/2 teaspoonful salt 1 teaspoonful vanilla extract 1/2 teaspoonful grated nutmeg 1 cupful shredded figs Wash and dry figs then shred them. Cream Crisco and sugar together, add eggs well beaten, and beat five minutes. Sift dry ingredients, and add to first mixture alternately with milk. Add figs and flavorings and turn into Criscoed and floured cake tin. Bake one hour in moderate oven. Sufficient for one small cake.
A plain butter-style cake from the Crisco era, leavened with baking powder and heavy on the flour. It works as written; a few of the instructions reflect 1910s equipment rather than modern habit.
- Oven temperatureA "moderate oven" is usually taken as around 350F, though period sources put it anywhere between 350F and 375F. In a single deep tin the hour is about right; check at 45 minutes with a skewer, as modern ovens hold a steadier temperature than the gas and coal ranges this was written for.
- "Criscoed" tinSimply greased with shortening, then dusted with flour. Any neutral solid fat, butter, or a baking spray does the same job.
- CriscoStill sold and still an all-vegetable shortening, though reformulated to remove partially hydrogenated fat. Half a cup of butter can be substituted; the crumb will be less tender and more flavourful.
- The five-minute beatingCreaming the shortening and sugar, then beating in the eggs, aerates the batter and works with the baking powder to give a fine crumb. A stand mixer on medium will do the beating.
- Shredded figsDried figs, torn or cut into thin strips rather than chopped. Wash and dry them as directed, remove the hard stem tips, and toss the strips in a spoonful of the measured flour so they do not sink.
- Pan size and yield"One small cake" with three cups of flour means roughly a 9-inch round or an 8-inch square, or a standard loaf tin; 8 to 10 slices. Baked in a deeper loaf tin it will likely need longer than the stated hour.
- Salt and spiceHalf a teaspoon of salt assumes unsalted shortening; reduce slightly if you use salted butter. Two teaspoons of cinnamon plus grated nutmeg is assertive by modern standards and is meant to be.
Crisco was introduced in 1911 and Procter & Gamble promoted it hard through cookbooks that named the product repeatedly in their methods, which is why this recipe says "Criscoed and floured" instead of "greased." Cakes built on shortening rather than butter were sold on economy and keeping quality, though the branded phrasing here dates the book only loosely, since P&G-sponsored cookbooks ran well beyond the 1910s. Dried figs were a staple pantry fruit long before that: imported chiefly from Smyrna and, by the early twentieth century, grown commercially in California, they gave a spiced cake sweetness and body at a time when fresh fruit out of season was hard to come by.