White Fruit Cake

I make half the recipe, which perfectly fills my two glass fruitcake pans (lined on the bottom with parchment paper).

Ingredients

  • 1 pound whole pecans
  • 1 pound red crystallized cherries
  • 1 pound green crystallized cherries
  • 1½ pounds natural crystallized pineapple
  • 10 eggs
  • 650g (5 cups) flour divided
  • 2 cups butter
  • 400g (2 cups) sugar
  • 1 tablespoon lemon extract
  • 1 teaspoon salt

Instructions

  1. Butter five 3-pound foil pans and line bottom with parchment paper. Dredge pecans, cherries and pineapple in ½ cup of flour.
  2. Cream butter in electric mixer, add sugar gradually and mix until smooth. Add lemon extract and eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Blend in remaining flour and salt. Add nuts and fruit and mix until all are moistened.
  3. Pour cake into the lined pans and bake at 250°F on rack 2 for 2 hours or until done. Let cake cool on wire rack for 30 minutes. Remove from pan, peel off parchment paper carefully and finish cooling on rack.

Notes

I halve the recipe and use two 9”x5” glass pans to bake the fruitcakes. I lightly butter the pans and line the bottom with parchment, and they come right out.

In 2018-2021, I baked the fruitcakes for 2 hours, 30 minutes. In 2022, I tried 2 hours, 15 minutes.

In 2023, we reduced the baking time to 2 hours, and they were just about perfect. We did the same in 2024.