A (Non)Traditional Fruitcake

 So, what does one do with fruit which has been soaking for more than a month on its way to making apricot wine? We'll eat some of it ... morsels of cranberries, blueberries, raisins; slices of oranges and lemons. And the rest of it, we decided, would be nice if used in a fruitcake. It's already alcoholic. Perfect!
 And it worked. Though the fruitcake is hardly of traditional texture, this one is a nice change of pace. It's far lighter - both in weight and in color - that the traditional fruitcake brick. What's not to like about that?

 We'll dribble on some Rock & Rye later but, for now, we've tasted it warm from the oven and christened it not only edible but actually quite nice. Only if you're expecting a usual fruitcake would you be disappointed.
 The recipe we modified is from the 1960's (perhaps even the 50's) and it's one Mom cut from a magazine, she thinks.

Fruit Cake


1/4 pound seedless raisins
1/4 pound finely cut dates
1/4 pound finely cut candied citron
1/2 pound finely cut assorted candied fruit
  Note: We dispensed with all of the above and used 1-1/4 pound of the fruit from our apricot wine.
  Mom removed the oranges and lemons first.
1-1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon each: allspice, cloves and nutmeg
1/3 cup corn oil
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup (we used the "light" version)
2 eggs, well beaten
2 tablespoons orange juice


 Add all the dry ingredients in one bowl and mix them. The fruit, corn syrup, orange juice and eggs go into another bowl. After each was mixed separately, mix them together.
 Turned this into a loaf pan which is first greased and then lined with parchment paper.
 Bake at 250° for 4 - 5 hours (we found 2 hours sufficient; test 'done' with a toothpick)
 Allow to cool. We'll drizzle on some Rock & Rye later. In any case, all fruitcakes seem to improve with age but we enjoyed a slice as soon as it had sufficiently cooled.

 This (above) is how the fruitcake looks going into the oven.

 And after two hours baking time, here's Mom testing the cake with a toothpick to see if it was done. It was. When done, the toothpick will pull out perfectly clean. If there's any wet batter on it, bake longer and check again.
 We have enough fruit to make another fruitcake but we wanted to see how successful we were with this one first. Onward!