Vintage recipes, Fruitcake Recipe

I'm not sure just when I became enamoured of old recipes, but somewhere along the way I started collecting recipe books that pre-dated 1960.  That's my arbitrary cut off date, why, I don't know.   I do know that many of the modern cookbooks don't have the variety of recipes, methods or interesting list of ingredients that the older cookbooks have.   So, I thought I would start sharing some of the older recipes that I think are really interesting.     And some of these, I've even made.   And when I do make them, I'll include the pictures, and any comments and procedures and failures here.  

The first one is actually a fruit cake recipe I found hand written on the inside frontispiece of cookbook I purchased at auction a couple of years ago.  It's a Boston Cooking School Cookbook, published in 1937, and was a present to a young woman for Christmas in 1938.   





 

There are actually two fruit cake recipes, on the left is the following:

6 cups plain flour
1 doz. Eggs
1 lb. Butter
1 small orange extract
1 lemon extract medium or Large
1 tablespoon Mace
1 lb. Candied Pineapple
1 1/2 lbs. Candied Cherries
1/2 lb. Citron
5 cups nuts
1 lbs walnuts, the rest pecans
Bake 2 1/2 hours at 250 degrees.
and penciled in below,
1lb. light-brown sugar
1lb. white raisins.

Then below that is this note from the author of the recipe on the right side of the frontispiece.
Note;
This recipe adapted from an old English recipe used by your Great Grandmother Catherine Pierson Bancroft and has been used by the women in the family for over a hundred years.
Mother.

Now for the recipe on the right side.
To Kathy (Kitty?) from Mother   Christmas 1938
My Fruit Cake
1 lb. Dates
¾ lb. Figs
¼ lb. Citron peel
¼ lb. Lemon peel
¼ lb. Orange peel
1 tbsp. Ginger
2 tbsp. Cinnamon
1 tbsp. Allspice
1 tbsp. Mace
2 lbs. Whole raisins
1 lb. Seeded raisins
1 lb. Seedless raisins
1 lb. Blanched almonds
1 lb. pecans
½ lb. Black walnuts
½ lb. English walnuts
1 lb. Candied pineapple
1 lb. Candied cherries
(Save a few nuts and fruits to garnish).
3 lbs. Flour
3 tsp. Baking powder
1 tsp. Salt
1 lb. Sugar
½ lb. Butter or Crisco
1 tbsp. Vanilla
1 tbsp. Lemon
Enough eggs and whisky to mix a sticky dough. (usually about 8 eggs- 1 cup whiskey)
With hands, mix Flour, salt, baking powder, sugar and butter together dry – add spices,
chopped fruits and nuts, mixing thoroughly – add eggs and whiskey, flavouring extracts
to a thick paste – pack in greased funnel pans lined with brown paper – bake slowly in
cold oven 4-6 hours. Dunk in wine, brandy or whiskey to keep moist.

Makes 18 lbs.

* I wanted to add a postscript to this.   By sharing the recipe here,  hopefully I've ensured that Catherine Pierson Bancroft's recipe will live on, even though her great-great granddaughter wasn't able to keep the cookbook with the recipe, maybe someone will make a note and keep it.  

I thought I would start with the Fruit cake recipe since it's almost time to make Fruitcake so it can be 'ripe' enough to serve at Christmas.