1900 to 1916 Cake #10

Neighborhood Prune Cake

Prunes were originally planted, during colonial times, in California by Spanish Franciscan Monks. In the 1850's, a Frenchmen, named Louis Pellier traveled to California in search of gold. The gold rush did not pan out for him, but he had experience as a horticulturalist and began a nursery in the Santa Clara Valley. His brother came to join him and brought along fresh cuttings of the sweet French Agen plums. The brothers were very successful with their sun-dried prunes. In 1901 the brothers shared their wares at the Pan-American Exposition. They hosted an all prune cooking contest and gave out brochures with recipes from stewed prunes to prune cake.

Prunes grew well in Oregon too, in the Willamette Valley. A recipe for a Prune Cake was eventually published in The Neighborhood Cook Book of Portland, in 1914. This cookbook was put together by a charity that was formed by the Council of Jewish Women. "The Neighborhood" was the name of their settlement house where they helped Portland immigrants adjust to their new home. The funds from the cookbook helped to support the running of this community center.

My Experience:

This cake was very simple; it almost felt like I was making muffins. The cake itself wasn't very exciting. It came out fine and tasted fine, but I would have no motivation to make it again. It did have a nice tender crumb and was moist due to the prunes. My neighborhood cake testers and I made jokes about it being a good cure for constipation and a couple funny memes were shared, but they pretty much had no comment on the cake.