White Chocolate Fruitcake

1 cup diced dried figs
1 cup dried apricots, diced
1 cup dried pears, diced
1 cup golden raisins, diced
1/2 cup crystallized ginger
3/4 cup bourbon or rum or brandy

Mix these ingredients together in a bowl, cover, and let stand overnight. Stir, if you can remember!

1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup firmly-packed brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
pinch ground cloves
a few gratings of whole nutmeg or 1/2 tsp. ground
4 eggs, separated
8 ounces of white chocolate, melted
1 cup unbleached white flour
1 cup pecan halves (If you don't like pecans, use walnuts or almonds or Brazil nuts...)
3 tbsp. flour

Prepare pans. (can use a mini-loaf pan which is a bit like a muffin pan but has 8 small loaf-cups instead of muffin cups; there is enough batter left for a small loaf pan too. Or use a tube pan or a 9x5 loaf pan instead. You can easily double the recipe or use 1 1/2 times the quantities given and fiddle around with various sizes of pans to suit your needs.) You can just spray the mini-loaf pans with non-stick spray and then add a skim of butter to keep the cake from sticking. The larger pans are best buttered, waxed paper cut to fit the bottoms, and then dusted with flour.

Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and spices. Add the egg yolks, one a time, and beat after each addition until the mixture is well-blended. Beat in the chocolate and then the cup of flour. Stir the 3 tbsp. of flour and pecans into the dried fruit and then stir into batter. In a clean mixing bowl, with clean beaters, beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Mix half of them into batter and then fold the remaining whites into batter.

Preheat the oven to 300 F. Put the batter into prepared pans. The mini-loaves take about an hour. Check to make sure they aren't getting too brown on top. If they are, put a tent of foil loosely over the tops. The bigger loaves take longer -- check after an hour and a half. A toothpick or skewer will come out clean and dry when the cakes are done.

This is a delicious fruitcake which keeps well wrapped in a boozy cloth and then foil or plastic.