Cream until light and fluffy:1 lb shortening -

Beat in, little by little:1 lb brown sugar -

Stir in: 1 cup molasses, 12 egg yolks, well beaten -

Sift together - 3 cups all purpose flour, 4 tsp cinnamon, 4 tsp allspice, 1.5 tsp mace, 2 tsp nutmeg and Add to first mixture [note: I tend to be heavy handed with measuring the spices, using heaping meaures. Also, I don't usually have mace around and use fresh ground nutmeg for both]

Mix: 1/3 cup flour, ** 3 lbs seeded raisins, cut in pieces, 2 lbs sultana raisins, 1.5 candied citron, sliced thin and cut in strips, 1 lb currants, 1/4 cup chopped preserved lemon rind, 1/2 cup chopped preserved orange rind

Add to the batter

Add: 1 cup brandy, 4 oz chocolate melted

Fold in: 12 egg whites, beaten stiff

Just before putting the batter in the pans,

add: 1/4 tsp baking soda, dissolved in 1 TB hot water

Fill the pans and cover the tops closely with aluminum foil. Set the oven at 250F. On the oven bottom place several shallow pans filled with hot water to a depth of one inch. Set the pans of fruitcake on the shelf above. Bake 3 hours, remove the pans of water and remove the foil from the cakes. Bake 1.5 hours to dry out the cakes.

There's a note on the original recipe "If your oven is too small to bake four large loaves at once, add half the soda to half the batter and bake two. Then add the remaining soda to the remaining batter and bake the remaining two loaves.

It's best to line your pans with parchment paper, and to turn on the oven partway through the mixing process so that you can start baking immediately.


This is a large process. The good news is that it makes a LOT of fruitcake and fruitcake, by nature keeps very well.

Every year when I make the fruitcake I get two chuckles. The first when I fold in the large pan of beaten egg whites into the large mass of fruit ** The next when I add the soda and water to this HUGE amount of fruit and batter. To mix all this stuff I use the bottom of my rectangular turkey roasting pan AND my 16" X 5" stainless mixing bowl AND a few other bowls along the way.


** HOW MUCH FRUIT DID YOU USE???

In the past I have put in between 114 and 152 oz of different fruits in the cakes. This year, on Nov 14 1999 I added 178 oz:

3 lbs raisins

30 oz golden raisins

20 oz currants

4 lbs "fruitcake mix"

1 lb lemon and orange peel and citron


HOW MUCH FRUITCAKE DID THIS MAKE???

7 large loaf pans and 4 small loaf pans


And you EAT ALL THIS?

Yes!

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