American Cake - Cake #27: Louisiana Syrup Cake

Time Period: 1900-1916

Cultural lines are drawn all over America, but in matters both political and culinary, the South has always been a realm unto itself. Citizens of French descent in particular had their own argot, their own religious practices, and of course, their own recipes. In the cake world, one of those specialized desserts was the syrup cake (or gâteau de sirop). Small communities in Louisiana had easy access to sugarcane, and the cane syrup derived from those crops was used to make this spice cake. That's not to say everyone made them the same way; even within the community itself, there are vast differences. I looked up this cake on the internet, and every recipe was wildly variant.

I couldn't find cane syrup at the store, and didn't really care to, as I read about the Cajun variant that uses fig preserves, instead, and that sounded far more appealing. There is no butter in this cake; the fat comes from vegetable oil, and the added fig preserves made for an incredibly moist result. It turned out to be very good. The spices and fig gave it a homey, traditional flavor that could really shine, since the relatively low amount of sugar means than it wasn't too sweet. This one is a keeper.