Recipe: Andie's Christmas Cake (using currants, dried cranberries and walnuts)

ANDIE'S CHRISTMAS CAKE
From: Andie Paysinger

This is an unusual cake in that it combines chocolate (cocoa) with dried fruits and applesauce as well as nuts (any nut can be substituted for the walnuts- I have used pecans, macadamias, toasted filberts and pine nuts. The original recipe which dates from the early 1800s called for chestnuts, dried apples, dried figs and orange peel. The cake is moist and rich and keeps beautifully. It can also be steamed in a pudding tin as one would a plum pudding of equal volume. The nice thing about it is that it doesn't need frosting - it is really nice with just a bit of powdered sugar sifted onto it. I do it in one large tree-shaped cake pan and also several smaller ones which I group on a large tray and decorate like a grove of trees. Sift powdered sugar on along the edges of the raised sections so it looks like snow. I know it is a bother, but freshly ground spices make this cake a masterpiece - if at all possible use them. (Hint - to clean an electric grinder that you also use for coffee, put3 saltine crackers and 2 tablespoons of baking soda in the grinder and whirl for at least 30 seconds - no taste or odor will remain).

1 cup butter
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground allspice
4 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch process cocoa powder
3 cups sugar
4 eggs
3 teaspoons baking soda
4 cups sifted flour
1 1/2 cups currants
1 1/2 cups dried cranberries
1 1/2 cups walnuts, chopped
3 cups applesauce, unsweetened

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease and flour a deep 11x15-inch baking pan or 2 (10-inch) square pans or 2 holiday mold pans.

In a large mixing bowl cream together butter, salt, spices, cocoa powder and sugar. Beat until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after adding each.

Mix baking soda with flour. Reserve 2 heaping tablespoons flour. Add flour to batter alternately with applesauce.

Toss the fruit and nuts with the reserved flour and fold into cake batter. Pour batter into pan.

Bake for about 1 hour or until cake tests done (deeper pans will require longer baking).

It serves 12 to 18.