This recipe is as close to Mom's recipe that I can find. It has all or most of the ingredients she used, and is made the same way. The original recipe dates between the 1960's and 1970's.

We had this yearly at Christmas until she lost the recipe in the 80's. I found her handwritten recipe stuck in the back of a 1980's magazine years later, but the recipe was lost again in a move.

Either Eagle Brand, Carnation or Pet Milk published the original recipe on the inside of the can label from sweetened condensed milk.

Mom used that recipe as the base recipe that she added more fruits and nuts to. If anyone has the original recipe, would you *please* message me with it? Thank you!

This is called a cake, and baked in a cake pan, but it isn't cake. It has zero flour, eggs or anything raw in it.

Why this cake was expensive to make in the 70's was the pounds of nuts and candied fruit called for in the recipe. Some were difficult to find, like the candied citron.

Ingredients:

4 1/2 cups Chopped Pecans

3 1/2 cups Chopped Walnuts (not black walnuts)

2 pounds Chopped Dates

1/2 pound Candied Red Cherries (halved)

1/2 pound Candied Green Cherries (halved)

Small container chopped Candied Citron (can't always find it)

8 oz Shredded Coconut

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Gold Raisins

Black or Red Raisins

2 cans Eagle Brand or Carnation Sweetened Condensed Milk

Small container Candied Pineapple

Small container chopped Crystalized Ginger

Small container chopped Candied Orange Peel

Reserve some red and green cherry halves, and some pecan halves for decoration.

There is no flour whatsoever in this recipe. The sweetened condensed milk rehydrates the candied fruits, which then become very sticky while baking, and that is the glue that holds the cake together. This is not so much a cake as a candy.

Slices are thin, no more than 1/4 inch thick, because of how rich it is. When the slices were held up to the light, light shone through the fruit, making it resemble a stained glass window.

Preparation:

Can be baked in a tube or bundt pan, loaf pans or cake pans.

The insides of the bakewear must be well greased with butter or shortening, then lined with buttered parchment paper, which has been cut to fit the pan bottom, sides and around the tube. The paper will then stick in place to the pan surfaces, allowing easy cake removal once baked. The buttered parchment paper method is the one Mom used every time with dependable success.

Mom always baked this in a round bundt pan. She would grease the pan in shortening, then cut 3 inch wide strips of brown or parchment paper. Each strip was long enough that they went from the top of the tube, down the tube into the bottom of the bundt pan, then up the fluted outside of the bundt pan.

Each strip overlapped the one she'd just placed in before. The pan should have a fully papered inside surface that is coated in butter on both sides of the paper.

Chill the papered pan(s) before hard packing with the ingredients.

In a large mixing bowl, hand-mix all the ingredients (except for anything reserved for decoration), until very well mixed.

Then press ingredients into the pan, using force to well-pack the pan, no gaps or loose areas. It must be pressed in very hard.

Small Pans: Bake at 220°f for 1 1/2 hours (less time for mini-pans)

Bundt and Large Pans: Bake at 225°f for 2 to 3 hours.

Bake with or without brown or parchment paper laid over the pan to prevent scorching. It is fully cooked when no milk oozes when the cake is pressed with your fingers.

The baking time and temperature is not to cook anything raw in the ingredients; it is to rehydrate the dry or candied ingredients in sweetened condensed milk, and to evaporate excess moisture slowly. The hours of slow, moist heating causes the sugars in the fruits to thicken (candying) thus gluing the ingredients together.

Once fully cooked, turn out gently on a large, moist tea towel. Do not use fuzzy kitchen towels! Use only smooth-woven tea towels, as the fuzzy towels leave lint, fuzz and threads stuck to the cake.

This is the time to decorate the cake with any cherries or pecan halves you reserved.

Wrap the cake very gently with more slightly moist tea towels, allow to cool to room temperature on the countertop.

Once at room temp, remove tea towels and place in a cake carrier or similar air tight container, and store in the fridge to cure for one week up to one month.

Be certain to seal in an air tight container, or seal well in plastic wrap to prevent odd fridge odors permeating throughout the cake while it cures. Mom wrapped hers tightly in plastic wrap first, then foil wrapped over that.

It can be cut into smaller sections, then wrapped very well in plastic wrap and frozen. If freezing, be certain that all the air is removed from the freezer bags, as any place that air can touch the cake, there is where freezer burn will happen.

This is a very rich concoction. It may have been baked in cake pans, but it is not a cake, the slices must be thin.

Usually a 1/8th inch thick slice is perfect. They make a beautiful display if arranged on an under-lit transparent tiered display. The light underneath will glow through the slices making it look much like stained glass. Even arranged with the slices fanned decoratively on a white platter is lovely.

If I find the original recipe, this will be updated ASAP for accuracy. I know some things are listed rather vaguely. My sincere apologies!