My Twelve Christmas Joys

• Serves: 12
• Prep Time: One hour, thirty minutes
• Total Time: 2 - 3 hours

Ingredients

• 2 cups of golden raisins
• 1 cup of dates
• 14 oz (two packages) of Sunkist Orange (or Lemon) Essence Prunes
• 1 cup of dried chunk pineapple
• 1 and 1/2 or 2 cups of salted mixed nuts
• (For soaking fruit) A big bottle of gin - more than you think you'll need!
• 2 and 1/2 cups of self rising flour
• 1 tsp of baking soda
• 2 cups of dark brown sugar
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice mix
• 8 beaten whole eggs

Instructions

Mix the dried fruits together in a large bowl and pour in the gin. Make sure all the fruit is covered with gin and let soak for at least an hour (or for more moist and ginny fruit, let soak overnight).

Drain the fruit and reuse the leftover gin, both fruit soaked and still bottled, with another package of golden raisins, stored in a jar, to use for an anti-imflammatory aid for joints. I use this - it works. You take a spoonful of gin and golden raisins a day, and it relieves joint pain. You must use golden raisins because the sulfur in the golden raisins is an important ingredient.

But if you don't want it for that - it makes a good wassail! You don't have to add any sugar, just let the raisins and gin soak for a few days and add a mix of mulling spices and cuts of orange and lemon to the mix. Keep stored until you're ready to serve it. It will make you feel you have had the Cratchits in with their favorite wassail recipe...

Now back to the cake!

Mix the fruit with the nuts, flour, baking powder, sugar, and spice, then mix in the beaten eggs until all is well mixed. I found it easier to do this with my hands, because the batter is so bulky. The resulting batter should be wet but not soupy.

Spoon the batter into loaf pans prepared either with linings of aluminum wrap or non-stick spray. I used mini-loaf pans, 2 inches by 5 inches, 2 inches deep, to make twelve mini-loaves; but the batter should fit in two regular sized loaf pans. Bake in a pre-heated 300 degree oven until the top of the loaves are crusty brown, and a knife stuck in the middle comes out clean. For the mini-loaves, this is about 40 minutes; for the two loaves, it should be about an hour and a half. Check them as they bake; ovens vary.

If you serve Ginny Cake warm, remember - fresh out of the oven gives you the full Ginny Cake taste. But you can reheat the fruitcake later on. Try butter, cream cheese or sour cream with a slice. The sour cream is for those who really don't like sweet cake - it makes this cake seem more like a light meal all by itself.

To store, wrap the loaves in paper towel or cheesecloth, and put in a sealable container. If you notice them getting dry before they're gone, put halves of apples in the box with them.