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Dark Fig Cake
2 cups of sugar. 1 cup of butter. One cup of cold water, with one teaspoonful of soda dissolved in it. 3 cups of raisins, chopped fine. Cinnamon and nutmeg. 4 eggs. 1 pound of figs.
Use the figs whole, covering them well with the cake to prevent burning. Bake in layers, frosting between each layer. Make as stiff as pound cake. Cut with a very sharp knife, to prevent crumbling. This recipe makes two loaves.--Mrs.
A late nineteenth-century fruit cake written for a cook who already knew what cake batter should feel like. The flour is not measured, which is the first thing to settle before you start.
- The missing flourNo quantity is given; "make as stiff as pound cake" is the whole instruction. With 2 cups sugar, 1 cup butter and 4 eggs, expect somewhere in the region of 3½ to 4 cups of flour, added gradually until the batter holds a soft peak on the spoon rather than pouring. This is a genuine gap in the original, not a conversion problem.
- Layers or loavesThe recipe says to bake in layers with frosting between, then says it makes two loaves. "Loaf" in period usage could mean a finished cake rather than a loaf-tin shape, so the two statements are not necessarily in conflict. No pan size is given; divided up, the batter will make two cakes of a few layers each.
- Soda with no acidA teaspoon of soda dissolved in plain cold water has no acid ingredient to react with beyond whatever slight acidity the dried fruit contributes, and can leave a soapy taste. For more reliable lift, use 2 teaspoons of baking powder instead, or replace the water with buttermilk and keep the soda.
- Whole figsDried figs, not fresh. Stem them and check for hardness; if they are leathery, steep 20 minutes in hot water and pat dry. "Covering them well with the cake" means burying each fig in batter so no exposed fruit sits against the pan wall, where sugar in the fruit will scorch.
- OvenThe original gives no oven instruction. A moderate oven, around 325°F, suits a heavy fruited batter at layer thickness, roughly 30 to 40 minutes; the lower heat lets the crumb around the embedded figs cook through without the fruit scorching.
- Spices"Cinnamon and nutmeg" with no amount means to taste. A teaspoon of cinnamon and half a teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg suits this quantity of batter.
- RaisinsChopping them fine distributes them evenly and keeps the crumb from tearing when sliced. Toss the chopped fruit with a spoonful of the flour before folding it in.
- CuttingThe warning about a very sharp knife is sound. Whole figs and a dense crumb tear under a dull blade; chill the assembled cake and wipe the knife between cuts.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by Virginia housewives, is a book of attributed recipes, and this one's contributor credit is cut off after "Mrs." in the text as transcribed. Dried figs were an imported store-cupboard item in Southern kitchens, kept alongside raisins and currants for occasion cakes rather than everyday baking. Layer cakes with boiled or plain sugar icing became increasingly common in American home baking in the decades after the Civil War, though they did not displace the fruited loaf, and the instruction here is not by itself a reliable guide to the recipe's date. The absence of a flour measurement is typical of the genre, which assumed a reader who judged a batter by hand and needed only the ratio of the expensive ingredients.