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Fig Layer Cake
Use any of the plain foundation cake batters (see Introductory Recipes) and bake in layers. For filling use the real fig jelly, or the filling given next below or "Fig Snow."
This is an assembly note rather than a full recipe: it assumes you already have a plain cake batter and a fig filling on hand. The details it leaves out are the ones worth pinning down.
- What a "foundation batter" isThe book's own introductory section is where the batter comes from; in books of this period such batters are generally plain creamed butter cakes. Any modern creamed yellow cake will stand in.
- OvenThe recipe gives no temperature. A modern equivalent would be around 350F; two 8- or 9-inch rounds take roughly 20 to 25 minutes, and shallower jelly-cake tins proportionally less.
- Layer tinsShallow layers were common in period jelly and layer cakes. If you want that proportion, divide the batter among three pans and shorten the bake.
- Figs to useMany period fig fillings are built on dried figs, though fig jelly may be made from fresh. If using dried, Calimyrna or Smyrna types give a nutty flavour; Black Mission figs work but darken the filling.
- Softening the fruitWhatever filling you choose, dried figs need to be simmered or steeped until genuinely tender before chopping, and the woody stem end cut away. Under-softened figs give a filling that shreds and pulls the layers apart when sliced.
- Filling consistencyA fig filling should be spreadable but stiff enough to hold, about the body of thick jam. Too loose and it soaks the crumb and the layers slide; a spoonful of the cooking liquid or a brief extra reduction sets it right.
- About "Fig Snow"Fig snow is typically a beaten egg-white confection folded with fig pulp, and versions of it are uncooked. Check the book's own recipe; if it is uncooked, treat it as a raw-egg preparation: use pasteurised whites, keep the cake refrigerated, and serve the same day.
- YieldTwo 9-inch layers give 10 to 12 slices. The recipe specifies only a filling and says nothing about frosting the top.
Figs reached American home baking mainly in dried form, shipped from Smyrna in Asia Minor and, from the late nineteenth century, grown commercially in California, where Mission figs planted at the Spanish missions were joined by imported Smyrna stock once growers worked out the wasp pollination the variety requires. Fig recipes cluster thickly in turn-of-the-century American fruit cookery, whatever the mix of reasons. The layer cake filled with cooked fruit paste was one of the company cakes of the era, and this entry's breezy cross-referencing shows how such books were meant to be used, with a handful of foundation batters at the front and dozens of fillings scattered through the fruit chapters to be mixed and matched.