Ever-So Easy Fruitcake

SUBMITTED BY MARIE CUTILLO THOMPSON

2½ cups unsifted flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 (28 oz) jar None Such Ready to Use Mince Meat
1 (14 oz) can Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk (not evaporated!!)
2 cups (1 pound) mixed candied fruit
1 cup coarsely chopped nuts ( I use walnuts)

Optional is to add some bourbon to the mix. I add probably less than a ¼ cup to the mincemeat jar, swirl it around and dump into bowl.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Generously grease and flour 10” fluted tube pan. I usually buy 5”x 9” foil pans and make 3 smaller loaf cakes because I give as gifts or take out for company.

Sift together flour and baking soda; set aside. In a large bowl, combine the remaining ingredients, blend into dry ingredients. Pour into prepared pan. Bake 1 hour and 15 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Cool on a rack for 15 minutes. Turn out of pan. If I am freezing them I just loosen around the edges and freeze in foil pan.

Tips: To store cake, cool thoroughly, wrap well in aluminium foil and refrigerate or freeze. I wrap mine with Saran Wrap a few times and then with heavy duty foil wrap at least twice. I make them in mid November so that by Christmas they have aged a few weeks. If wrapped well and kept in back of freezer they will last a good year and even taste better then.

Back in the late 70’s and early ‘80’s I was a big coupon and label lady. I would send away for every free thing that any food company offered. In 1981 I got this booklet from Eagle Brand products and my in-laws and husband saw this recipe. They had been buying a fruit cake from a company in Texas and requested I try making this one. So I did and they loved it. Soon I was making one for all my in-laws.

Then one year my husband brought some into the Police Dept where he worked and the guys came in wondering what is was they were smelling.  That started me making more of them to bring in at holidays so that everyone could have some. Then my Dad (after many years of turning his nose at it) decided to try one piece and then there was another order every year for him.

One year my husband came home and asked me if I would be willing to share my recipe with a baker, a friend was getting married at Christmas. They loved my fruitcake and wanted it as their wedding cake. I know it sounds silly to feel honored by this since I was following a recipe from a book but heck I did.

Now I make them for my son’s father-n-law, he loves mince pie and fruitcake and is thrilled I make him one very year. Funny as it sounds in all the years I have been making them, I myself never ate any until the last 4 or 5 years and I find myself saying every year what took me so long to try it. Hope if you try this you love it as much as the Thompson family has for over 39 years.