I guess in America they might have been able to dried some of their own vine fruits - whereas it was the period where bakers in the UK were experimenting with adding root vegetables to cake to eke it out - and boiling the dried fruit, or soaking it in water or tea, would have plumped it up to make it look 'more' - and make for a moister cake from poorer quality currants, I guess!

Plain cakes were 'plainer' too I think. Nowadays when I make a plain cake to sandwich with jam I use a Victoria mixture - but when I was a child I remember a more solid plain cake - I think it had more flour than butter or sugar, and possible milk instead of some of the eggs. It was one of my grandfather's favourites, sandwiched together with frosting flavoured with cocoa. Frosting rather than butter cream as it had milk as well as the utter - again a more frugal version.