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Fig Frosting
To Confectioners' Frosting No. 1 add one cup figs which have been boiled in one half cup water until tender, and chopped until fine.
A one-line variation that assumes you have already made the book's base frosting. Everything hinges on getting the figs fine enough that the frosting still spreads.
- It is a sub-recipeYou need Confectioners' Frosting No. 1 from the same book first. That base is not reproduced here; period confectioners' frostings are generally confectioners' sugar moistened with a little hot liquid, and some are bound with unbeaten egg white. Check which base you are using; if it contains raw egg white and you would rather not serve that, use a cooked or butter-based confectioners' frosting instead.
- The figsDried figs are meant, not fresh. Calimyrna or Turkish figs both work; snip off the hard stem ends before cooking, since they will not soften and will show up as gritty flecks.
- "Until tender"Expect 15 to 20 minutes at a bare simmer in the half cup of water, covered, with the pan watched — that is very little liquid and it will scorch if it goes dry. The figs should mash easily against the side of the pan.
- Chopping"Chopped until fine" means a very fine mince, close to a paste; a food processor or the fine plate of a food mill does in seconds what would have been done by hand with a knife and bowl. The recipe does not say what to do with any liquid left in the pan, but it carries much of the flavour and can go in with the figs.
- Cool before combiningWarm fig paste will thin a confectioners' frosting to a glaze. Let it come to room temperature, fold it in, then add sifted sugar a spoonful at a time if the frosting has slackened past spreading consistency.
- FlavourFigs alone read as sweet and rather flat. A little lemon juice or grated zest, or a pinch of salt, sharpens it and is entirely in keeping with the period.
- Yield and useThe quantity of the base frosting is not stated here, so the yield can only be estimated — perhaps around two cups once a cup of figs goes in, likely enough to fill and top an 8- or 9-inch two-layer cake. It suits plain white, spice, or nut cake better than chocolate.
- KeepingThe fruit makes this a moist frosting that does not dry to a crust. Keep the finished cake covered and eat it within two days; refrigerate in warm weather.
Lowney's Cook Book (1907), compiled by Maria Willett Howard for the Walter M. Lowney Company of Boston, was a chocolate manufacturer's promotional book that grew into a general household manual, which is why a fig frosting sits in it alongside dozens of cocoa recipes. Dried figs were a cheap and reliable pantry staple in American kitchens by this date — Smyrna figs came in by the barrel from Turkey, and California's Calimyrna crop, grown from imported Smyrna cuttings, became commercially viable only after the fig wasp was established in 1899 and expanded through the following decade. Fruit-and-nut variations built on a single base frosting were a standard organizing trick of the era's cookbooks: one master recipe, then a page of one-line additions for figs, dates, raisins, coconut or walnuts.