You know what they say..."It don't mean a thing if you ain't got the bling!" But really, no, I have no strange piercings. I don't know where "Grace the Golden Fruitcake" gets off on posting such garbage on a thread about someone's illness, but it shows he/she/it has no morals. Anyway...the last I heard Jan will be released tomorrow and will receive care on an outpatient basis. If anything changes, I or anyone else can post it here.

Oh MY!!!! So sorry you lost your Mom's recipe box! I made Fruitcake this year for the first time and below is the recipe I used and my substitutions for a Dark Fruitcake. Even though I'm trying this recipe for the first time it is T&T many times over and highly recommended. Christmas fruitcake (Mrs. Bartholomew) 1/2 to 3/4 litre white rum 1 pound candied cherries (substitute angelica for a handful of the cherries, if you have it) 3/4 pound candied pineapple 1/4 pound candied citrus peel 1 pound large sultanas raisins 1/2 pound blanched whole almonds 1/2 pound walnut halves 1 pound unsalted butter, softened 2 and 1/4 cups of sugar 6 large eggs 4 cups of white cake flour (not self-raising) 1/4 cup lemon extract 1. Warm 1/2 litre of the rum until it seems just about to boil, and immediately remove it from the heat. Soak the cherries, pineapple, citrus peel, sultanas, angelica and nuts in the rum overnight. Strain, reserving the rum, and set the fruits and nuts aside in a very large mixing bowl. (You don't have to heat the rum up if it's too much trouble, but it soaks into the fruit much better if it's warm). 2. Beat the butter and sugar until very light and fluffy. Beat in half of the eggs, then half the flour, then the rest of the eggs, then the rest of the flour, then the lemon extract. Pour the batter over the fruit and nuts and stir well. 3. If your loaf pans are non-stick, just butter them. I use a stick of butter like a crayon to do this. Otherwise, line with buttered parchment paper. Scrape the batter into the pans. Bake in a preheated 300 degree Fahrenheit oven for 45 minutes, then cover the pans with foil and bake for another 45 minutes. Watch carefully near the end of the cooking time; as soon as the cakes start to pull away from the edges, or resist when you poke them gently, they are ready. It is better to underbake than overbake. 4. Let them rest on a rack until they've cooled to room temperature. 5. When the cakes have cooled but are still in the tins, carefully poke several holes through each loaf with a long, thin skewer. Heat the reserved rum - again not letting it quite boil - and drizzle it over the cakes. If the fruit and nuts soaked up most of the rum, add another 1/4 litre of rum before heating it. Leave it for 15 minutes so that the rum will more or less soak through the cakes, although some may still remain in the bottom of the tins when you remove the cakes. 6. Wrap each cake carefully for storage. If you have large enough linen pudding-bags, you can lightly moisten these with rum and slip a cake inside each one. Otherwise, you can wrap the cakes in the brown paper they were baked in, which should be thoroughly permeated with the rum. Whether you've used cloth or brown paper, wrap the cakes in another layer of plastic wrap or tuck them into a plastic bag for further protection. The longer you leave the cakes before serving, the better. If you won't be able to resist tasting, pour a little of the batter into a ramekin to bake it separately and eat it while you're wrapping the other two cakes." For the Dark Fruitcake I could not find a recipe I liked so adapted the above and made my own recipe. The batter for the dark fruitcake was delicious so I have no doubt that the finished cake will be too. Dark Fruit Cake 1/2 to 3/4 litre white rum 1 pound candied cherries (substitute angelica for a handful of the cherries, if you have it) 3/4 pound candied pineapple 1/4 pound candied citrus peel 1 pound large sultanas raisins 1/2 pound blanched whole almonds 1/2 pound walnut halves 1 pound unsalted butter, softened 2 cups of sugar 5 large eggs 4 cups of white cake flour (not self-raising) 1/2 c. molasses 1/2 orange juice 1 tsp cinnamon (you can add more cinnamon if you like) 1/4 tsp nugmeg 1.Warm 1/2 litre of the rum until it seems just about to boil, and immediately remove it from the heat. Soak the cherries, pineapple, citrus peel, sultanas, angelica and nuts in the rum overnight. Strain, reserving the rum, and set the fruits and nuts aside in a very large mixing bowl. (You don't have to heat the rum up if it's too much trouble, but it soaks into the fruit much better if it's warm). 2. Beat the butter and sugar until very light and fluffy. Beat in 3 eggs, then half the flour, then the rest of the eggs, then the rest of the flour, then molasses, OJ, cinnamon and nutmeg. Pour the batter over the fruit and nuts and stir well. Continue from Step #3 in first recipe. I made my fruitcakes around the first week in October and have been basting them with brandy once a week since then. However, I did just buy some Peach and Cherry Brandies and I am going to baste the cakes with the new brandies next week. Peach for the white and cherry for the dark. You might want to try looking for Fruitcake Recipes over on the Harvest Forum too. Michelle Here is a link that might be useful: Harvest Forum

There have been some wonderful threads on fruitcake in past years on the Harvest Forum, but not this year, unfortunately, and the really good threads have long dropped off. Food preservers are as interested in mincemeat and fruitcake as they are in jams and chutneys. There were some fabulous recipes posted. There's so much history in them. My mother's dark recipe also makes a huge batch and is a kind of litany of rural America in its ingredients: sugar, honey, lard, butter, hard cider (grape juice for teetotalers), prune butter, cherries, raisins, currants, dates, apricots, candied pineapple, almonds, walnuts, filberts. Bake batter in a slow wood stove 5-6 hours. Yield is 5 7-inch saucepans with pebble-filled Alka-Selzer bottles in the center of each to conduct heat. I love reading that old recipe that way I'd love a good novel. I'd never say what the "perfect" fruitcake is because I've seen how powerful people's preferences are. One person will love the dark fruitcakes while another loathes them. I detest citron but some people just wouldn't consider it fruitcake without it. One of my favorite fruitcakes is a Golden Fruitcake on Epicurious. All kinds of dried apricots, pears, figs, dates and raisins soaked in brandy. Cubes of marzipan in a brown-sugar and cardamom-nutmeg spiced batter and lightly toasted pine nuts folded in at the end. Unforgettable. But a lot of traditionalists feel a sense of loss if you serve them something like that for the holidays. I used the conventional candied fruits in my last batch and just gave a mini-loaf to a friend nearly 80 years old from Louisiana. A dyed-in-the-wool Southerner and fruitcake aficionado. He said it was the best he'd ever tasted in his life. So I wouldn't knock the commercial candied cherries and pineapple. They definitely have their fans. In my recipe (if I'm doing the whole batch as originally written and not making the apricot-pecan variation) I use 1 pound of candied pineapple, 2 pounds of candied cherries (red and green but not the green "mint" flavor just green color), 1 pound of Medjool dates, 1 box of golden raisins, 4 cups of walnuts (toasted) and 4 cups of pecans (toasted). No spices, just vanilla. This would yield about 5 8 1/2x5 loaf pans or 12 3 1/2x5. I've also used brown paper pans and the really tiny petite pans or mini-muffins lined with red and silver foil papers for gifting. I bake at 250 (not pre-heated) anywhere from about 60 minutes for the petite loaves up to 2 1/2 hours or so for the larger loaves. But that was my old non-convection oven. I have not attempted this in my new one yet. I watch the baking times like a hawk. Over-baking is the death of fruitcake. Any more I just do the smaller loaves, double-wrap in Saran and foil then bag and freeze. We love it year-round a little at a time. Once a loaf is thawed I keep it in the refrigerator. It's more like a candy than a cake and chilled it can be sliced in thin "stained-glass window" pieces. AFAIK, I'm the 4th generation to make this, though we've each made changes along the way. I added "instructions," LOL. I inherited it as just a list of ingredients. Originally the recipe called for 1 cup of corn syrup heated and used as a glaze when the cakes come out of the oven, but in generation #2 a baker accidentally added the corn syrup to the batter and we've made it that way ever since. It's more moist and candy-like. Good cooks and their fortuitous errors! Carol

Alison's Dad's Fruitcake 3 cups halved red and green glace cherries 2 cups candied mixed peel 2 cups dark seedless raisins (such as Thompson) 2 cups golden raisins 2 cups dried currants 1 cup brandy 1 cup slivered almonds 1 cup pecan halves 3 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 cup butter, softened 3/4 cup granulated sugar 1 cup packed brown sugar 5 eggs 2 tsp. vanilla 1 tsp. almond extract 1 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. cinnamon 3/4 tsp. each ground nutmeg and mace 1/2 tsp. each baking soda and salt 1/2 tsp. ground allspice 1/4 tsp. ground cloves In very large glass bowl, combine cherries, mixed peel, dark and golden raisins, currents and 3/4 cup of the brandy. Cover and let stand, stirring occasionally, for 2 hours or overnight. In a bowl, toss together the almonds, pecans and 1/2 cup of the flour. Toss with fruit mixture. In a large bowl or stand mixer, beat butter with granulated sugar until light. Beat in brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, 1 at a time. Beat in vanilla and almond extract. In separate bowl, whisk together remaining flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, baking soda, salt, allspice and cloves; stir into butter mixture until combined. Scrape over fruit mixture; mix well. Scrape batter into 13 x 9 inch parchment paper-lined metal cake pan; smooth top. Set shallow pan on bottom rack of 300 degree oven; pour in enough water to come halfway up sides of pan. Bake cake on center rack of oven for 1 hour. Lay foil loosely over cake; bake until cake tester inserted in center comes out clean, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Let cool in pan on rack. Remove cake from pan; peel off paper. Soak double-thickness 32 x 16 inch cheesecloth in remaining brandy; wrap around cake. Wrap in plastic wrap, then foil. Refrigerate for 1 month or for up to 3 months. Cut crosswise into 6 bars. Cut bars into 14 slices each.