Light Festive Fruit Cake

Light Festive Fruit Cake

Ingredients:

1 ¼ cups fine white sugar

1 cup butter (room temperature)

5 eggs

1 cup cake and pastry flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp mace

1 pound light raisins

½ pound glazed cherries cut in half (half red; half green)

¾ cup diced glazed pineapple

½ pound diced mixed peel or citron if preferred

½ cup orange juice

¾ cup all-purpose flour

½ pound toasted slivered almonds

Unsweetened coconut to taste

Crystalized ginger sliced to taste

Method:

The night before baking cake, prepare fruit and add orange juice. Let stand overnight, stirring a few times.

On baking day line containers with parchment paper and make batter.

 Cream butter and sugar well. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add cake and pastry flour, salt and mace. Beat until flour disappears.

Add slivered almonds and coconut to fruit and stir. Add the ¾ cup of all-purpose flour to the fruit and stir until fruit is covered. Add batter and mix well.

Scoop mixed batter into lined pans and bake at 325 degrees for an hour or until toothpick comes out clean. If top of cake gets too dark lay tin foil over the top.

Remove cakes from oven and let cool.

Poke holes all over cakes with a skewer or something similar and drizzle either white rum for the boozy version or white grape juice or apple juice for the non-boozy version. This helps moisten the cakes.

Wrap in cheesecloth then foil and store in a cool place.