Catholic Recipe: Dark Fruit Cake I

An appropriate and traditional accomplishment is of course the fruit cake, for which recipes are legion, ranging from the dark brandy-soaked cake of the South to the delicate white fruit cake favored elsewhere. This is a recipe for a traditional dark fruit cake, made dark with the brown sugar and molasses ingredients. Although the preparation of the cake takes approximately 4 hours, it is best to make the fruitcake weeks before serving to let it "age."

DIRECTIONS

Cream the butter and stir in the sifted brown sugar; add the egg yolks. Sift the flour before measuring and resift all but 1/2 cup with the spices, the soda and the salt and add to the butter mixture alternately with the brandy, molasses, and sour cream. Sift the remaining flour over the raisins, the currants which have been washed and dried, the broken pecan meats, the chopped citron, and the cherries which have been cut in half. Mix the fruits into the batter. Whip the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff and fold into the batter. Line two loaf pans with heavy wax paper, pour in the batter, and bake at 300° F. for about two and one-half to three hours.