Take Six Fruit Cake

I had never made fruitcake, until yesterday.  I'm not sure why, but I thought it was difficult and that I wouldn't be able to do it on my own.  So I ask my mother to give me a "Fruit Cake Lesson".  She was only too happy to.  (Even though she is retired...once a teacher, always a teacher!)  We got out her recipe and bought the ingredients.  She asked me to mix up the fruit the day before so the flavors would all come together.  

Take Six Fruit Cake

Mix all fruit in a large bowl the day before:
2C currents
2 ozs walnuts
1/2 C candied red cherries
1/2 C candied green cherries
1/2 C dates (chopped)
1/2 C mixed peel
4 C raisins
1/2 C candied pineapple (chopped)
1/2 C figs (chopped)
Stir, cover and set aside for the next day.  (I have a severe nut allergy, so I omitted the walnuts.)

Cream 1 C brown sugar, 1C butter, add 4 eggs, add the juice of 1 lemon and 1 orange.  Mix 2 tsp of instant coffee with a little water to dissolve, and add to sugar/butter mixture. 

In a separate bowl mix: 2 C flour, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp mace, 1 tsp allspice, 1/2 tsp cloves, 1 tsp baking soda.  Add these dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.  Mix well, and add fruit.  Stir fruit in by hand.  Put batter in pans.  I pressed cherries into the batter for decoration.  Whole almonds would be pretty too.  This makes the equivalent of 2 loaf pans.  I like to use small round pans.  Line your pans with parchment and grease the parchment.  Cook @ 325.  I used small 4" pie pans and they cooked for 65 min. Loaf pans would take much longer.

Printable Recipe

After baking in the oven.

Gift wrapped and ready for giving!

Next year I'm planning on making a larger batch!

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