White Christmas Cake

Mom's White Christmas Cake

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

1 cup butter or margarine

5 eggs

1/2 cup unstrained orange or grapefruit juice

3 cups all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 pound cherries (red and green maraschino, OR glace/candied cherries are good too)

1 lb bleached raisins (only for looks - any raisins will work)

1/4 pound peel (candied fruit is excellent)

1/4 pound almonds (slivered, chunks or whole)

1/4 lb coconut (coloured is nice)

Cream butter and sugar.

Add eggs and mix/beat well.

Sift / stir flour, baking powder and salt; add to batter with juice.

Add fruit, nuts and coconut last and mix. (Sometimes I'd dust them with flour, but didn't usually have any problem with their sinking)

I used buttered loaf tins or casseroles and baked about 1 hour (till a toothpick came out clean) at 250' to 275'.

I'd let them cool 15 minutes or so, then turn out, cool completely, and wrap and freeze. It was good right away, or better after the flavours had a chance to marry.

The loaves were nice sliced (toasted) and buttered, or cut a bit thicker and sliced as a piece of fruit cake.

This was a very forgiving recipe. We'd add extra of whatever we liked/could afford. If we had no juice, regular citrus flavoured pop/soda worked well too (I think it was Wink I used one year).

Whole almonds were nice if I had extra to decorate the top before baking.

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