If you have spent the holiday season in the South, you will have heard of Claxton Fruitcakes. Mostly fruit and nuts and hardly any cake. Now -that's- a fruitcake! We used to buy a couple extra and freeze them for later in the year. This recipe is like that.

This recipe also requires no baking.

I remember one year at home when my mother, sister, and I made fruitcakes. I marvel that Mama had made them all by herself for so many years! What a production! First you line all the tins with waxed paper by drawing around the bottom. Then you cut a strip just the right length (and with an overlap of 2") and fold it so it also was just the right height. Grease the tin and put in the paper. Grease the paper.

This took absolutely forever! My sister and I got very cranky with this step, but Mama made us finish the job.

At last, you got to make the cake. This was a long process, too, which included adding certain stuff only to other certain stuff and beating egg whites to soft peaks and folding them in. As I think of this last step now, I wonder, Why bother? Who'd notice that eggs were separated and the whites beaten? You baked the cakes - - each a different amount of time because the tins were different sizes, you see - - and then you turned them out to cool. While this was going on, you'd peel off the waxed paper, wash and dry all the tins, and line them yet again! Finally, the cakes went back into the tins, were put in the closet, and in a couple of days were doused with brandy, rum, or bourbon. Phew!

Anyway, this recipe side-steps all that. Just dump the ingredients altogether, more or less, pack the mixture into lined (sorry!) tins and put them in the refrigerator. Douse it with booze every so often. Keep refrigerated.

As they say in the South, "Honey, that's goooooood eatin'!"

The only trick to this recipe is that you have to make sure the graham cracker bits are ground as finely as flour and that all this powder is moist before you stop mixing.

fruits and nuts:
16 oz. candied pineapple
16 oz. candied cherries
8 oz. candied citron
8 oz. chopped dates (or whole dates and you chop them; remove pits)
1 15-oz. box raisins (approximate weight; an ounce or two one way or the other doesn't matter)
1 15-oz. box golden raisins (ditto)
1 10-oz. box currants (ditto)
12 oz. chopped walnuts (ditto)
8 oz. chopped pecans or -blanched- slivered almonds, or a combination (ditto)

liquids:
1/2 c molasses
1/2 c strawberry preserves
2 T frozen orange juice concentrate
1 12-oz. can evaporated milk (non-fat is ok)

dry ingredients:
l lb. graham crackers
1 t ground cinnamon
1/2 t ground nutmeg

Put fruits (and their syrup) and nuts into a big bowl (I use a big salad bowl; a stock pot would also work; Mama used a dishpan.) and break up any stuck-together clumps. Use your hands.

Put the graham crackers in the food processor, one inner-seal package at a time, and process until they are ground as finely as flour. No lumps! Dump into another bowl. Add spices and mix.

Pour the dry ingredients on the fruit and "toss" so the fruit pieces are dusted on all sides. Again, use your hands. Pour on liquids and mix well (with hands) until no dry graham cracker powder remains. If needed, add more liquid (evaporated milk, orange juice concentrate, or jam).

Pack into prepared tins, pressing firmly. Don't worry; it will all fit even though it seems the tins will be too small. The cake will be sticky, but all the moisture will be absorbed.

Refrigerate 2 days and then start dousing with rum or brandy. Omit the booze if you prefer. Store in refrigerator.

Notes:

Yields 10 pounds (2 tins 8" in diameter). For a 2-lb. batch, use 1/3 lb. graham crackers (one inner-seal pack) and cut the fruit down to 4 oz. of each flavor and adjust the other ingredients accordingly.

If you like another combination of fruits or nuts (but not peanuts), certainly, feel free to alter as you prefer. Make sure you have approximately the total weight of approximately 90 oz. of fruit and 20 oz. of nuts. (My mother is, doubtless, shaking her head that I am so loosy-goosy with this recipe.)

The original recipe called for a 4-oz. can of flaked coconut, but I omit this as it is high in saturated fat. You may not care for the taste or texture of coconut. (My family and I don't, so the coconut is not missed on two counts!)

You can buy blanched almonds or you can make them yourself.