This is a lovely rich fruit cake that will hit your budget less than the Holiday Fruitcake.
For the blackberry jelly, use seedless blackberry jam, folks are suspicious enough of us retro fruitcakes er I mean of fruit cake without thinking the blackberry seeds are some nut shells or weird dirt or pits.
This recipe halves well and you can use all pecans if the almonds are too dear. If you don’t have cream leftover from something else, you can use milk with fine results. The canned fruit juice can be substituted with any juice. Orange juice works well.
I am also not averse to substituting ginger or cloves for the mace. Speaking of which, if you have a spice you use once a year-instead of buying a whole bottle, find a natural foods store that will sell you just the teaspoon or less you need from their “bulk” spices. This will improve the taste of your dish by using fresh spices each year AND save you money because you won’t be buying more than you need.
If you are short on loaf pans, clean empty coffee cans work well for fruit cake pans.
2 lbs. moist raisins
2 lbs. moist currants
1 lb. citron, finely cut,
1 lb. pecans, chopped
1 lb. almonds, blanched, sliced
4½ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons nutmeg
1 teaspoon mace
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 lb soft butter
1 lb brown sugar
12 eggs
1 6-oz glass blackberry jelly
½ cup cream
½ cup canned fruit juice
Thoroughly wash and dry the raisins and currents; combine with citron and nuts. Sift flour, measure and resift twice with spices; mix 2 cups of it with the fruit and nuts. Cream butter until soft and smooth, blend in sugar thoroughly, and add eggs one at a time, beating well after each egg is added. Add blackberry jelly which has been thoroughly beaten up. Add remaining flour mixture alternately with cream and fruit juice, beginning and ending with a portion of flour and mixing well after each addition. Stir in floured fruits and nuts and mix until well distributed through the batter. Pack into loaf pans lined with 2 thcicknesses of greased brown paper or waxed paper. Bake the same as the Holiday Fruit Cake for 2½ to 3 hours, depending on size of the pan. Cakes are done when they pull away from sides of the pan and are firm to the touch in the center. The Modern Family Cookbook
