Nose To Tail At Home

Now, before you start giving me grief about posting a Fruit Cake recipe, let me give you a little background from my Aunt Carrie.

This is Grandma’s recipe.  My senior year of high school, Granddad was sick and out of work all year, so we had no money for Christmas.  Aunt Norvene gave Grandma this recipe and she made many fruit cakes that she sold for a little money.  Several of my high school teachers bought cakes because they knew what a good cook Grandma was.

Our family does not eat fruit cake or like fruit (except for Grandma) but everyone needs a recipe for fruit cake – this is ours.  Seriously, this recipe makes a good fruit cake – if you like it.

I’ve made a few tiny modifications to the recipe, but for the most part it’s the same recipe that helped save Christmas for my father’s family that year.

Ruby Lee’s Candied Fruit Cake

1 pound of pitted dates
1 pound of candied pineapple
1 pound of candied cherries
2 pounds of toasted pecans
1 cup of sugar
2 cups of flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons of Myers’s dark rum, plus extra

First, sift the two cups of flour and two teaspoons of baking powder together and set aside.

Chop the dates, pineapple, and cherries.  This step is important because you’ll catch any of the pits missed by the machines, saving you from an expensive dental visit.  For whatever reason, I just could not find enough of the neon green and red candied cherries and pineapple to make this recipe.  I did however find these:

These “mixes” had some of the candied fruit I needed in them, and a lot of extra orange and lemon peel that I’m not a big fan of, so I’d suggest that you not use them yourself.  This fruit and peel “mix” is being substituted in only so I can show you the recipe step by step in pictures.  By the power vested in me by the Internet, I urge you to “do as I say, not as I do“.

Chop the two pounds of pre-toasted pecans.  I did mine in a food processor to save some time.

In another bowl, beat your four eggs well, then add the cup of sugar and two teaspoons of dark rum.

Combine the candied fruit, dates, pecans and sifted flour mixture in your biggest bowl.  I ended up using a medium sized pot.  Mix everything together until the flour covers every surface.  Pour the egg mixture on top of the flour covered fruit and nuts and start mixing again until all of the flour is moistened, like so:

Oh, and when you think you’ve gotten egg everywhere, you really haven’t.  Trust me.  It takes a lot of mixing to truly cover all of it.  While you mix, preheat the oven to 250ºF (121.11 ºC)

Grease two or three small loaf pans and fill with the fruit cake batter.  Place your loaf pans in the oven for two and a half hours.

Spritz the finished loaves with the extra dark rum to moisten them slightly, then wrap individually with foil or serve right away.

I wanted to share these recipe with all of you in an effort to honor my Grandmother.  I loved her dearly, and I’ll always cherish the fact that she taught me that cooking good food for your friends and family is another way to show them that you care.

Ruby Lee Adams
August 20, 1912 – June 1, 2009