Grandma Lila's Fruitcake

Merry Christmas! This fruitcake recipe is the one our Grandma Lila used for years. It is famous/infamous enough to be mentioned in the eulogy at her funeral service.  I have "embellished" it with my own observations and experiences.

1 lb. dates (I sometimes use less)
1 lb raisins (Again, sometimes I cut back on these)
1/2 lb candied citron (I usually use more)
1/2 to 1 cup brandy, rum, or other liquor (Grandma sometimes used more.)
1 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
4 eggs
1 Tbs milk
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp ginger

Step 1 Procure the unmentionables. (The way Grandma did it) Send a male relative to the liquor store to buy the brandy or rum while you sit and wait in the car in the parking lot so no one sees you buying it!

Step 2 Prepare the fruit.  Soak fruit in half of the liquor overnight.  This is to plump it up. No other reason.  Never mind that there is scientific evidence to suggest that the alcohol content actually has more astringent properties than hydration properties. Follow the recipe.  Don't judge.

Step 3 Get ready.  Play the Elvis Blue Christmas album for festive background music.  Argue with a random grandchild that he is not really dead.  After the third time through, pretty much everyone will get tired of it and get out of the kitchen so you can work in peace. Preheat oven to 250 degrees. That is not a typo - you want these to bake slow so that they are moist on their own... but then we're fixin' to pour liquor all over them to moisten them, too, so - whatever.  (I do like to think that this is roughly the temperature of an Easy-Bake Oven, thus taking me back to my childhood, when unsafe burning hazard toys like light-bulb powered cooking appliances were perfectly acceptable gifts to give to small children!)  Grease and flour loaf pans or bundt pan. Or even a sawed off cleaned out Folger's can (The way Grandma did it.) Put on an apron now that you've spilled flour all over your black holiday sweater and stupidly wiped it trying to get it off, since you just weren't thinking clearly because you were "tasting" the soaked fruit.

Step 4 Make and bake.  Cream butter and sugar in a big ol' Mixmaster. Beat in eggs and milk. Sift flour, soda, and spices and stir into fruit. Add fruit to creamed mixture. Pour into prepared pans and decorate the tops with candied cherries and pecan halves. Then bake 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours depending on size of pans and/or cans. This is enough time to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" or "Miracle on 34th Street" AND "Wheel of Fortune."

Step 5 Liquid Decoration.  (Optional, but it IS the way Grandma made it): Splash what might be left of the rum or brandy over fruitcake after baking and wrap in foil for a few days before serving.  Store in a dark corner of the cupboard to aid in the "moistening" process.  Hide one of them for yourself. 

Step 6 Serve.  Ignore the comments about the fumes when the foil is opened.  They'll eat it.