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Fig Envelopes
2 cups flour 3 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons sugar 2 teaspoons shortening 2/3 cup milk 1 cup chopped figs 1 egg Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar; add shortening and rub in very lightly; add slowly enough milk to form stiff dough. Dust board with flour and divide dough into two parts (handle as little as possible); roll out 1/4 inch thick, cut into squares and on each piece put one tablespoon of fig; brush edges with cold milk; fold and press edges together. After folding like an envelope, brush tops with egg beaten with one tablespoon milk and one teaspoon sugar. Bake about 20 minutes in hot oven.
A biscuit dough folded around chopped figs, closer to a filled scone than a pastry. The dough is what matters: it wants to be barely mixed.
- Oven temperature"Hot oven" in period baking tables generally falls somewhere around 400-450F; the book gives no figure. Twenty minutes at about 425F should brown the tops without drying the biscuit dough.
- Handling the doughThe parenthetical warning is the hinge of the recipe. Overworked biscuit dough turns tough and the fig filling then sits in a leathery pocket. Bring it together, roll once, cut, fold.
- Shortening quantityTwo teaspoons is very little fat for two cups of flour, and the result is lean and bready by modern taste. It may well be a misprint for tablespoons; two tablespoons of butter or shortening gives a more tender biscuit.
- The figsThe recipe says only "chopped figs"; dried figs, stemmed and chopped small, are the likely intention. If they are very dry, steep them in hot water for ten minutes and drain well, or the filling will draw moisture out of the dough.
- Milk and dough consistencyTwo-thirds cup is a starting point, not a fixed amount. Add it gradually until the dough just holds together in a stiff mass; flour absorbency varies more than the recipe allows for.
- SealingCold milk on the edges acts as the glue. Press firmly with fingertips or the back of a fork, since baking powder lift will push a weak seam open in the oven.
- Size and yieldSquares of about three inches take a tablespoon of filling comfortably. The cup of figs, at a tablespoon each, points to something nearer sixteen envelopes, though trimmings and rolling thickness will change the count.
- Egg washThe egg beaten with milk and sugar is a full egg for a dozen small biscuits, so there will be more than needed. Brush thinly; pooled wash scorches at hot-oven heat.
The New Royal Cook Book was published by the Royal Baking Powder Company, and like all manufacturer cookbooks its purpose is generally understood to have been to make chemical leavening indispensable in the home kitchen. That explains the three teaspoons of baking powder specified by brand, and it explains the whole chapter of quick biscuits and muffins: dough raised in minutes rather than hours was the selling point. Fig envelopes belong to a family of filled biscuits that sat between bread and pastry on the American tea table, using dried figs, which were shipped from Smyrna and later from California. The folded shape is simply descriptive, as with turnovers and pockets elsewhere in the period's baking.