CAKE--DENSE, CHOCOLATY, TASTY AND MADE WITH... OLD BOTTLED FRUIT!

This cake was made from a bottle of home canned cherries--canned in 1984--I'm serious. Also, it contained no eggs so if you are dying for something really tasty but the fridge is eggless and you have old canned fruit, you are in luck. It was dense and delicious. I've made this recipe three times now, taking it once to a friend who was sick. She got better but said she planned on getting sick again soon if we would bring this cake. We ate it plain and with homemade yogurt. We didn't bother with frosting it but I bet it would be over the top good with frosting.

I made the original version--with spices--first and then decided it probably would be good made into chocolate. It was. I didn't add nuts or chocolate chips.

ANY OLD BOTTLE-OF-FRUIT CAKE--original recipe found here--for chocolate version see below

1 quart of any bottled fruit, juice and all
2 cups of granulated sugar
1 cup oil
4 cups flour (not sifted)
4 teaspoons soda – mix in with fruit
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1 cup nuts (optional)
1 cup raisins or chocolate chips (optional)

Blend or chop fruit and place in a large mixing bowl with sugar and oil. Add sifted dry ingredients, and if desired, nuts and /or raisins/chocolate chips. Mix together well and pour into a 9×13 inch pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when poked in the middle. Cool. Frost with Cream Cheese Icing. Hurry and take a big slice before anyone knows that the cake is done, or you won’t get any because it is that good.

Chocolate version: Remove cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon and add 1/2 cup cocoa.

PS Last years I dumped probably four dozen jars of old fruit. What was I thinking?

MY EXCITING FRIDAY EVENING

I know you will be jealous of my Friday evening activity. I ironed napkins. Not just any napkins, either. Paper napkins.

Why? you ask. Because I'm thrifty. A saver. Cost conscious. Cheap. Like I said, thrifty.

And the napkins weren't mine. They belonged to the Relief Society. They were napkins that we had rolled up, with silverware inside for Enrichment dinners and didn't use them. So, I took them apart tonight and ironed them and viola! Almost new napkins that a non-cheap non-thrifty person would have thrown away. Money saved? Twenty cents--maybe. Money used for electricity and my time? Priceless. Ha ha. I know, corny.

But...in about a half hour my spontaneous friend, Pam, is picking me up and we are going to Mamma Mia. Again. So, my ironing thrift will pay off as we go to the cheap inexpensive dollar movie, which I think actually costs a dollar-fifty. They charge the big bucks for evenings.

But in all fairness we paid regular price when it first came out. We didn't even ask for the senior discount, which, of course, we aren't eligible for anyway, being born in the seventies. We made the record books, giving birth to children before our own birth like we did. We should be in some kind of record book. Right next to the man who has foot long fingernails or someone who only eats chocolate. Now there's an idea.

I hope your Friday evening is at least as exciting as mine.

SIX WORDS FOR THE LAST OF THE KALE

Sometimes "thrift" means lots of work.