The Belle of the Ball Baked a Fabulous Algoma Fig Cake

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

She didn’t have to win a blue ribbon at a county fair for everyone to know that Fannie baked the best Fig Cake in Algoma, perhaps the best in all of Kewaunee County.  If served to the ladies at any social event, news of her delicious dessert would likely have spread around town faster than wildfire and be noted in the local newspaper the next day.

Frances “Fannie” McDonald Phillips Tooley was the “belle of the ball” of the Algoma social scene.  She was born in 1874 in Ahnapee and grew up in the town where, in the “gay nineties”, there were numerous parties and events planned for young women of that era.  When there was a Veterans Day party, Fannie was part of the revue planned to show what fashionable young ladies were wearing.  On the Fourth of July, she was featured in the parade in a patriotic costume.  If it were her birthday, or anyone else’s, the newspaper would report that she was in attendance along with news of the fine quality of the refreshments that were served.    

In August, 1895, the local paper reported, “A very pleasant surprise party was tendered Miss Fannie McDonald last Tuesday, in honor of her 21^st birthday.  Quite a number of young lady friends of Miss McDonald assembled… and enjoyed a tea party which was the first event in the surprise.  In the evening the ladies were joined by a party of young gentlemen, and an adjournment was taken… to Guild Hall, where the evening was pleasantly passed in dancing and other amusements…”     

Girls of Algoma
Frances is the second on the left in the front, seated row

And, “A large number of the friends of… Fannie McDonald…were entertained at cards on Tuesday evening by the ladies… Between 65 and 70 were present and the evening was spent in card playing.  Cinch was the game and among the ladies Mesdames Emil Danek and J.H. McGowen were tied for first prize, the former winning…  Delicious refreshments were served…,” the Record newspaper announced in another of the many, many notices of the comings and goings, doings and bakings of Fannie McDonald.

Frances was a mediocre cook but she loved to bake.  Relatives fondly remember the smell of her gingerbread cookies (made child size for kids) and her pies.  Her caramel cake frosting is legendary.  Literally.  It remains a topic of conversation among her descendants yet today.  Unfortunately, although the ingredients are known (three cups brown sugar, one cup water, one tablespoon butter, one teaspoon vanilla, and enough cream to thin) no one has been able to successfully replicate it.  Boiling, syrup forming a soft ball in cold water, beating until creamy, and thinning to exactly the correct consistency are involved.  No one today can get it just right!        

But, recipes and ingredients were different back then.  Take her Algoma Fig Cake recipe, for example.          

Algoma Fig Cake

One cup butter, two cups sugar, three and one-half cups flour, one-half cup sweet milk, whites of seven eggs, two tea-spoonsful baking powder.  Bake in jelly tins.  Put one pound of figs chopped fine in a sauce pan on the stove and pour over it a tea cupful of cold water and one-half cup sugar.  Cook until soft and smooth then spread between layers and cover with chocolate frosting. 

If one tries to recreate a cake from an heirloom recipe, it won’t be the same.  The basic ingredients have changed dramatically over time.  Sugar and flour are more refined today.  Now, milk is pasteurized and homogenized.  Butter isn’t the same either.  Eggs don’t taste the way they used to because hens are fed differently than they were back then.  And, how much is in a tea cupful?  Is it measured in a delicate, scant ¾ cup sized teacup or something closer to the big tea cup in our cupboards?  Is a “jelly tin” a jelly roll pan or something else? 

How long does one bake this cake?  At what temperature?  Obviously, Frances didn’t need to write those details.  To bake a cake she needed a “moderate oven” (350-400 degrees), not a “slow oven” (250-300 degrees), not too hot.  Without a reliable means of checking the temperature in her oven, she might have used her bare hand to test the heat.  Some bakers stuck their hand in the oven and counted to 20.  If they could stand it for a count of 20, the temperature was hot enough to bake a cake, perhaps 350 degrees.  She might have tried a less painful method to test the heat by placing a little flour in the bottom of the pan and putting it in the oven.  If after one minute the flour turned brown, the temperature was probably just right. 

Yes, one could try to recreate Fannie’s Fig Cake but could never get the same delicious results.  She baked fun into her dessert and how much to stir in isn’t written in the recipe.