I have been making and distributing these cakes to my friends (those who love fruitcake and promise not to use it as a door stop, and you know who you are) for at least 25 years, with love, and since I am getting old and may not be available or able to do it another 25 years, this year I am sending along the recipe.  It is highly modified by me from the original one I got out of a very old Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.  I hope one or more of you will take up the tradition and keep this wonderful method alive.  The amounts listed here make 10 loaves of the size mentioned.  You can make fewer cakes in larger loaf pans, or in a tube pan, or just proportionally reduce the recipe and make fewer cakes.  The most essential, and thoroughly naughty, step, of course (you just knew my fruitcakes would have a naughty step) is the final soaking after baking.  To omit it would be a tragedy.

Ingredients:

Prepare the fruit, nuts, etc:

Drain any extra thick sugar syrup from the candied (glace) fruits.  Some fo the fruits will be pre-chopped but most things will have to be cut up into small cubes, no larger than a half inch cube.  Cut cherries in half.  As you complete chopping up each species of fruit, dried or candied, sprinkle on a few tablespoons of flour, just enough to very lightly coat the sticky cut surfaces, and stir with a spoon or your hands until the pieces are quite separate.  It should take about a cup of extra flour to do all the batches, which should be combined one at a time after flouring.  Add the raisins, coconut, and almond slivers at the end and mix the whole thoroughly in the very large container.

Preheat oven to 275 degrees.

Thoroughly cream together the butter, sugar, vanilla, and the orange water with a hand-held mixer in the large container.  Beat in the eggs one at a time.

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.

Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture alternately with the pineapple juice, beating well after each addition.

Pour batter over fruit mixture in very large container and mix the stiff dough thoroughly.  You will have to use your spotlessly clean hands to do this job, and it is hard work.

Spray the disposable aluminum loaf pans with non stick spray.  Then fit a piece of aluminum foil into the pan just the size of the bottom, and spray again.  This will help the cakes release when cooled.  Place a large spoonful of batter on the middle of the foil in the bottom of each baking pan, and gently spread it to the edges so the foil is correctly positioned and weighted down.  Then fill the pans, dividing the batter evenly among the 10, and pressing the batter down, especially in the corners, so there will be no voids or empty spaces.  The batter should come almost to the top of the pan.  Smooth the top of each cake with the back of a spoon.  Place 5 pans on each aluminum tray, and put the trays on the rack in the oven.

Bake cakes in preheated 275 degree oven, approximately 2.5 hours, rotating every 20 minutes as mentioned, until the tops are medium brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Cool on racks uncovered overnight.

Next day, one at a time, tip the cooled cakes out of the baking pans.  usually they come out easily because of the high butter content, but if they stick a bit, tug gently on the flexible sides of the baking pans and push gently on the bottoms.  Peel the aluminum foil off the bottom of each cake.  Tear long strips of plastic wrap, and lay each one down on a flat surface.  Set each cake crosswise on the plastic and bring up the cut ends over the top of the cake.  Allow enough to overlap generously.  Put the cakes back into their respective baking pans.

Pull back the plastic wrap exposing the tops of the cakes, and sprinkle a full tablespoon of amaretto on top of each cake.  Replace the plastic wrap and cover the cakes with an additional layer of plastic or clean kitchen towels, and let them rest at cool room temperature for a week.  Each week thereafter, uncover the tops of the cakes and sprinkle evenly a full tablespoon of Southern Comfort on top, re-wrapping and covering the cakes, until you have done this 5 or 6 weeks in a row.  Whiskey is the traditional liquor for this but I don’t like whiskey and the Amaretto/Southern Comfort combination is divinely fragrant and tasty.

When the soaking phase is done, I wrap the entire cake, in its plastic wrap and baking pan, in aluminum foil, then place the package in a plastic grocery bag, which I hoard from the vegetable department of the grocery store all year.  These cakes last at least a year, even without refrigeration.  If you eat them slowly, as I do (about one slice a month with a cup of tea), you can keep the cake in the refrigerator and refresh the cake with a tablespoon of Southern Comfort every 3-4 months.  Or, if you eat it as I suspect one friend does, by tearing off the wrappings, and diving into the crawl space under his house with the cake and a 2 liter bottle of root beer, and polishing it off just before he goes into diabetic coma, longevity is not an issue.  Either way, the cake and this recipe come with best wishes for all the joys of the season, from a loving friend.

Jeanne

Ingredients for Tien’s version: