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Fig Cake
Mrs. Trusbie.
For the white part: Take two cups of sugar, two of flour, two thirds of sweet milk, one-half of butter, whites of five eggs, two teaspoons Cook's Friend baking powder; bake this in two round tins like you would jelly cake. For fig or dark part: Take one cup of brown sugar, sutter size of walnut, one cup flour, one cup chopped figs, one-half cup sweet milk, one egg, one teaspoon Cook's Friend baking powder; when done place the fig cake between the light cake, with a little frosting.
A three-layer cake in disguise: two white layers baked in shallow jelly-cake tins with a single dark fig layer set between them. The proportions are sound, but the original leaves the cups implied and the oven unmentioned.
- The implied cups"Two thirds of sweet milk, one-half of butter" means two-thirds cup milk and half a cup (1 stick, 4 oz) of butter. The white batter is a standard 2-2 cup sugar-and-flour formula, so the unstated unit throughout is the cup.
- "Sutter size of walnut"A typesetting slip for butter. A walnut-sized lump is usually reckoned at one to two tablespoons, which is all the fat the dark layer gets.
- Cook's Friend baking powderA Canadian brand widely sold in the late nineteenth century. Substitute the same volume of modern double-acting baking powder; two teaspoons for the white batter, one for the fig.
- Tins and oven"Round tins like you would jelly cake" suggests shallow layer pans, most likely 8 or 9 inches. The recipe gives neither temperature nor time; a moderate oven of about 350F and roughly 18-22 minutes for the thin white layers is a reasonable modern starting point, with the fig layer -- only one cup of flour -- watched closely as it will be thinner still.
- The figsDried figs, stemmed and chopped small. Tough, leathery figs benefit from a soak in hot water or milk for ten minutes and a thorough draining before they go into the batter, or they stay chewy in the crumb.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh unsoured milk, specified because sour milk was the other common option and would have called for soda rather than baking powder. Whole milk is the right choice.
- AssemblyThe fig layer goes in the middle, with frosting used only as the glue between layers. A plain boiled or confectioners' icing suits it; the whites-only cake is meant to read pale against the dark band.
- YieldOne three-layer cake, 10 to 12 slices. The five leftover yolks will keep a day or two covered in the refrigerator and are enough for a custard or a batch of curd.
Fig cake of this kind belongs to the American and Canadian layer-cake craze of the 1870s and 80s, when cheap chemical baking powder and thin "jelly cake" tins made stacked cakes practical for ordinary households. The trick here is the contrast layer: a single dark stratum of brown sugar and dried fruit sandwiched between two white-of-egg layers, a pattern that also produced ribbon cake, marble cake and the various "gold and silver" cakes that used up yolks and whites in turn. The Home Cook Book was compiled in Toronto in 1877 from contributions by named local women, which is why the recipe carries Mrs. Trusbie's name and a specific commercial brand: Cook's Friend was a Canadian baking powder, and its appearance in a community cookbook shows that branded leaveners had found their way into home baking. Dried figs, meanwhile, were an imported luxury that kept well, which made them a reliable winter fruit long before fresh ones were shippable.