Fruit Cake

Ingredients

1) 3 cups of dry fruit (choose from raisins, dates, dry apricots, dry pineapple, dry apples, whatever you have available)
2) 3 cups of chopped nuts (choose from walnuts, almonds, pecans, whatever is most abundant to you)
3) 2 pounds mixed candied fruit for fruit cake (this is the cheapest way to buy fruit for fruit cake, in the large 2 pound tub, all mixed together)
4) 1 cup margarine (2 sticks)
5) 1 cup sugar
6) 1 cup brown sugar
7) 4 medium eggs
8) 1 cup fruit juice (or the syrup from canned fruit or even kool-aid)
9) 1 teaspoon baking powder
10) 1 teaspoon cinnamon
11) 1/2 teaspoon allspice
12) 3/4 teaspoon salt
13) 3 cups flour

Preparation

1. First measure and prepare all of the fruit.

2. The regular dry fruit must be soaked first.

3. Put your raisins and whatever other dry fruit you are using, into a bowl.

4. Cover them with hot tap water and set aside. This keeps the fruit moist while it bakes. Do not omit this step to save time. Attempting to use the raisins without soaking first, they do not turn out good at all. So always soak the regular dry fruit before using it. The candied fruit does not need soaking.

5. Chop up your nuts, use any kind you like.

6. Then in a very big bowl combine the margarine, brown sugar, white sugar and eggs. Mix it all up very well.

7. Add the fruit juice or syrup. Mix again, until it is nice and smooth.

8. Now measure in the baking powder, spices and salt.

9. Add the flour, and stir it up really good. The batter will be quite thick. Be careful as you stir, to get all of the corners of the bowl, so everything is mixed in nicely.

10. Next dump in the nuts and the candied fruit. Get the regular dry fruit, which is soaking, and drain it very well.

11. Add the drained fruit to the batter along with the nuts and candied fruit.

12. A big wooden spoon works best for this task. Stir and stir some more. Get all of the fruit and nuts evenly distributed throughout the batter.

13. Now generously grease four 8" by 4" loaf pans with solid shortening because it makes the finished cake easier to remove. Turn the batter into the four loaf pans, filling them equally full.

14. Spread the batter to the corners of the pan, because it is so thick it will not run there by itself, like regular cake batter.

15. Bake the loaves at 275 degrees F for 2 1/2 hours. When you stick a butter knife into the center of one of the cakes, it should come out clean.

16. The cakes will rise a little bit, but not too much. Allow the cakes to cool completely before trying to remove them from the pans. This is important.

17. If you try to remove them while they are still hot, they will not come out as whole cakes. Instead they will come out as hot fruit cake crumbs.

18. After they have been removed, double wrap them, first in plastic wrap and then in tin foil. These freeze very well. They make excellent gifts to folks who like fruit cake.