Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Bernice Lucas' Christmas Fruit Cake

1-3/4 cups (1 lb.) Brazil nut meats
2-1/4 cups (1 lb.) English walnut nutmeats
3 cups (1 pound) dates
1-1/2 cups sugar
1-1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt
1 medium jar (10 oz.) green maraschino cherries
1 medium jar (10 oz.) red maraschino cherries
4 eggs, separated

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°. Combine nutmeats and dates and cover them with sugar. Add whole cherries with their juice. Sift dry ingredients and stir into above mixture. Beat egg yolks and add. Beat egg whites until stiff and fold into above mixture. Pour into two greased and floured loaf pans. Bake about 1 hour and 15 minutes or until cakes test done.

Notes:
Bernice Lucas placed this recipe in the handwritten cookbook of the Jolly Neighbors Extension Club of Rose, Nebraska, during the early 1960's. I have expanded the directions a little because all the recipes were greatly condensed to fit on one side of a 3x5" recipe card. I believe that the Lucas ranch was north of Rose.

Another great Easy Recipe

Love At Home

There is beauty all around
When there's love at home.
There is joy in every sound
When there's love at home.

Roses bloom beneath our feet,
All the earth is a garden sweet,
Making life a bliss complete,
When there's love at home.

-- John Hugh McNaughton (1829-1891)