Fruitcake Unusual And Worth It Recipes

Steps:

• Place coconut, dates, and pecan pieces in a very large (7 quart or larger) bowl. With your hands break up chunks of dates & coconut, and stir those 3 ingredients together.
• Add the cherries, pineapple, and sweetened condensed milk. Stir thoroughly. (I wear non-powdered surgical gloves, and stir it with my hands because the mixture is very stiff.).
• Let set at room temperature while you prepare the pans. Spray 2 - 9"x5" loaf pans with Pam. Line the pans with waxed (or parchment) paper. (We cut parchment paper in 4 1/4"x 16 1/4" and 8"x 12 1/2" strips for this. You want the paper to come up past the sides of the pans after the mixture is packed into the pans. It seems like a lot of work, but it's well worth the effort!) Now spray the paper (after you've pressed it into the pans) with Pam.
• Stir the ingredients well again.Divide the ingredients equally between the 2 loaf pans.
• Pack VERY TIGHTLY and smoothly into the pans. (I wet my hands & press, pack down, & smooth top, using both hands. Wetting your hands keeps them from sticking to "batter".).
• Place the pans on the middle rack of the oven and bake at 300 degrees F for 1 hour, or until lightly browned. (If the cakes have baked for an hour, or look a little brown around the edges, take them out of the oven & lift edges of paper a little to see if sides look brown enough. If they're brown on sides, but not on top, you may broil the tops for a few minutes-watch carefully.).
• Remove cakes from oven and let cool for 10 minutes in the pans.
• Gently lift the edges of the paper a couple of times on each side - kind of a rocking motion. Turn pans upside down onto a paper-lined cookie sheet. Lift pans from the cakes. Remove paper from bottom of cakes IMMEDIATELY.
• Let cool completely. Place in a large container (don't wrap yet) and refrigerate overnight.
• Turn cake upside down to slice. After slicing, wrap in waxed (or parchment) paper, then in heavy duty aluminum foil.
• May be refrigerated up to 3 months or frozen up to 1 year.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Baking time 1 hr.+ 30 mins. Grease a 10-inch tube pan, and line bottom of pan with foil, grease foil.
• Note:I reserved the prunes, figs, apricots and some of the pecans, to decorate the baked fruitcake and in Step #7. In a separate bowl combine dates, cherries, pineapple, dried lemon, candied lemon and some of the chopped pecans. These can be stirred into the batter after mixing it as directed in Step #4
• In another large bowl, with mixer at low speed, beat sugar and shortening until just blended. Increase speed to high, beat until light and fluffy.
• Add flour,b.powder,salt,vanilla and eggs to the sugar/shortening mixture. Beat at low speed until mixture is just blended. Stir in dried fruit. Note: Add the mixture of dates,cherries, pineapple,dried lemon,candied lemon and pecans at this point.
• Spoon into pan and bake, until toothpick inserted in mid-cake comes out clean, about one and a half hours.
• Cool cake completely in pan on a wire rack. Remove from pan and carefully peel of the foil. At this point I added glaze and decorated the cake. Wrap fruitcake in plastic wrap or foil tightly, and refrigerate overnight so cake will be firm and easy to slice.
• Optional-Glaze: In a small pan heat apricot preserves until just melted, stirring occasionally. Brush cake with half of preserves. Garnish with dried fruit, cherries and pecans.
• This cake may be made a month in advance or a day ahead.