Mix fruits together in a bowl. Pour brandy over fruits. Turn fruit mixture over every 20 minutes. Soaking time is a matter of taste, but two hours is typical. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Prepare tube pan: grease sides and bottom. Line bottom and sides with greased brown paper.

In a very large bowl, mix flour, spices, baking powder and salt. Stir until spices are evenly blended throughout.

In a third bowl beat eggs until fluffy. Add brown sugar, orange juice, molasses and butter. Mix, making sure that all the sugar dissolves.

Pour off any liquid from fruit mixture and add the fruit and the nuts to the dry ingredients. Mix until all fruit pieces are coated. Then pour in the liquids and mix gently until you have an evenly-mixed batter.

Pour batter into pan and bake at 300 degrees F. for 1 hour. Cover pan with foil and bake for 1 hour more or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 30 minutes before removing from pan. Peel off paper very carefully.

Put cake in cake tin lined with foil. For the next 3 to 4 weeks, sprinkle a little brandy over cake twice a week. Keep cake covered and store the tin in the refrigerator. If you prefer to omit the brandy, cover top of cake with very thin slices of apple instead.

* An extravagant, traditional fruitcake -- This is about as rich a fruitcake as you could possibly want to make. It started life as a Better Homes and Gardens recipe, but has been changed beyond all recognition.

* This makes a Huge cake. If your tube pan isn't at least 10 X 4 inches, there is a fair chance that it will run over; in that case, use several loaf pans instead (fill loaf pans about half-way). A pan with a removable center will make extracting the cake much easier.

* Except for mixing the liquids, an electric beater is useless for this recipe.

* In the Usa, candied fruits typically come in packages of the indicated sizes. If you have to measure by volume, use 2 1/2 cups of candied citron and 1 1/3 cups of the candied cherries. I prefer citron instead of the mixture because there's no bitterness from the rinds, although the cake isn't so colorful. Calmyra figs are the light-colored figs most commonly seen in North America.

fruit), 2 hours baking, several weeks mellowing.

Fruit and nut quantities are somewhat flexible.

College Park, Maryland, Usa