Not Your Mother's Fruitcake

I have just made eight fruitcakes to give as holiday gifts, and I wanted to share the recipe, which is different, probably, from anything you've ever tasted and so delicious. No marinating the cakes in booze for weeks. No heavy molasses taste.

A friend, who always writes a newsy run-down of her family's activities for the year, included the recipe, which I read and immediately said, "Wow, that's for me."

(So much easier than the cookies I used to make.)

Here goes:

2 cups sugar                                        1 tsp. soda

1 cup butter, softened                         1 tsp. vanilla

4 eggs                                                  2 cups chopped dates

3 1/2 cups flour                                   2 cups chopped nuts (I used walnuts.)

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 tsp.baking powder

14 oz. pkg. flaked coconut

1# candy orange slices (chopped)

1 cup red and green candied cherries (chopped)

Cream sugar and butter. Add eggs and mix well. Add remaining ingredients and blend. (I blended the "wet" ingredients with a mixer, then added the fruits and nuts and continued mixing with my hands.) Spoon the thick batter into greased and floured loaf pans Aluminum throw-aways are good. Alternatively, you could use one bundt pan. Bake at 250 degrees for 2-3 hours - less time if using loaf pans, more for a single bundt pan. The cakes are done when a toothpick comes out clean and the top is brown. My oven took 2 hours 20 minutes for four loaf pans.