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Brown Cake
2 eggs 1 t cinnamon 1 C brown sugar 1 C sour milk 12 C butter 1 heaping t soda 3 T cocoa 1 C flour (before sifted) Mix sugar, eggs, cocoa, cinnamon; then sour milk and soda; then flour. Bake in layers about 20 minutes. Put together with following filling: 1 C water 1 C sugar 1 T. butter Mrs. Robt. Sitz.
Fig Filling: 1 heaping t flour Figs Grind figs in food chopper. Add sugar, mix flour in the dry sugar; then add to figs. Add water and butter and cook slowly until thick enough to spread on cake, when cold.
Mrs. Robt. Sitz.
A two-layer sour-milk chocolate cake with a cooked fig filling, printed with the ingredient columns scrambled — as often happens when a church-book page is transcribed. Read the amounts carefully before you begin.
- The garbled butter"12 C butter" is almost certainly a mangled 1/2 C. The printed method never mentions the butter at all, so where it went in is a guess; creaming it with the brown sugar before the eggs is the usual handling.
- Which ingredients belong whereThe stray "1 unbeaten egg 1 t vanilla" at the foot of the page most likely belongs to the fig filling rather than the cake, which already has its two eggs. Stirred in raw and cooked with the figs and water until thick, the egg will set.
- Figs, quantity unstatedNo weight is given. For a cup of water and a cup of sugar, about 8 oz of dried figs, stems removed, gives a spreadable filling. Chop them in a food processor in place of the food chopper.
- Sour milkThis means naturally soured raw milk, thick and acidic. Use cultured buttermilk cup for cup, or a cup of whole milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar left to stand ten minutes. The acid is what activates the soda.
- A heaping teaspoon of sodaThat is closer to 1 1/2 teaspoons, which is a great deal for one cup of flour. A level teaspoon is plenty with a cup of soured milk and will not leave a soapy edge.
- Flour "before sifted"Measured unsifted, so scoop and level: about 5 oz / 140 g. The batter will be thin and pourable, which is normal for this style.
- Oven and pansNo temperature is given; bake at 350F. One cup of flour makes two thin 8-inch layers — 20 minutes is about right, and they are done when the centre springs back.
- Filling consistencyCook the filling gently and stir constantly once the egg is in; a single tablespoon of flour thickens slowly and the mixture scorches easily. Cool it completely before spreading or it will slide off the layers.
- YieldOne 8-inch two-layer cake, 8 to 10 servings.
Community cook books like this one were sold to raise money, and their cake sections are a fair record of what a kitchen kept on hand: brown sugar, cocoa, dried figs, and a crock of milk gone sour. Sour milk with soda was a common leavening of the nineteenth century and lingered long after baking powder became cheap, partly from habit and partly because soured milk was a byproduct nobody would throw away. Fig filling -- figs ground, sweetened and cooked down -- appears often enough in community books of this period to count as a stock recipe. The double attribution to Mrs. Robt. Sitz, once for the cake and once for the filling, reflects the two parts being submitted and set in type together.