Xmas Recipe #1 - Fruit Cake

Ingredients

1 pound sugar
1 pound butter
1 pound all-purpose flour
10 large eggs
1 pound dates
1 pound raisins
1 pound halved candied cherries
1 pound chopped candied pineapple
1 pound mixed candied fruit
1/2 teaspoon ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons ground cloves
1 teaspoon allspice

Method:

(* - Refer below before starting to make cake*)

Combine fruits in a large enameled kettle or large bowl; cover with brandy and stir to blend. Cover and let soak at least overnight. Preheat oven to 300°.Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs two at a time, beaten. Add flour which has been sifted and to which has been added spices. Drain fruit; toss with a little flour to lightly coat. Mix well. Prepare loaf pans by greasing then lining with buttered brown paper. Fill 2/3 full with batter and bake for about 3 hours, covering loosely with aluminum foil after 30 minutes to prevent over-browning (do not let the foil touch the cake). Test with cake tester or toothpick after about 2 hours. Makes 10 pounds of cake.

* The most pain-stalking thing about making this cake our way is that grandma will start to prepare all ingredients in October! Yup.. yup... you read right in October. Here's why.... Firstly you have to take all those fruit and candied items and dry them out in the sun.

And grandma doesn't dry them whole. What we have to do is sit down and further snip those fruits into smaller pieces and then only dry them out. Ensure when drying fruits, that you have good strong sunlight so that they will be properly dried.

Once your fruits are properly sunned, prepare one of those big clay jars to soak and keep the fruits for at least 3 whole days. The recipe above says just to soak them overnight, but not in grandma's books it doesn't. Ensure that the jar is cleaned and dry before putting the fruits in. Once placed all fruits in jar, pour enough brandy to cover the fruits, give it a good stir and then close jar firmly.

Continue to stir your fruits every night for the next three nights topping up the level of brandy in the jar until the fruits are unable to absorb any more liquid. You would have realised by now the reason behind snipping and sunning the fruits earlier.... this is to maximise the absorption of brandy to give the full flavour to our fruit cake.

Once the above is done, you may follow the recipe above as written. After that for storage, do continue to further douse the cake with brandy and keep in a cool, dry place until Christmas to get the full effect!

Happy Baking!!!