Jeffrey Steingarten's Mother-in-Law's Fruitcake

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
2. Rinse the candied cherries and combine in a very large bowl with all the dried fruits and walnuts. (I use a plastic dish pan.)
3. Using a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter until light. Add the sugar and mix well.
4. Beat in 3 of the eggs to mixture, then 2 cups of flour. Mix well. Beat in 3 more eggs and final 2 cups of flour. Mix well.
5. Add the lemon extract, zest, lemon juice and vanilla to cake batter and combine.
6. Pour cake batter over fruits and nuts. Use a sturdy hand spatula to thoroughly combine ingredients. Batter will be very stiff!
7. Butter loaf pans and line with parchment paper. Lay one piece lengthwise, another crosswise. Trim to fit pans. Butter fitted parchment paper.
8. Pour batter into pans, leaving one half inch of space at the top of each pan.
9. Cover pans with foil and bake for 45 minutes. Remove foil and then bake, uncovered, for 60 additional minutes.
10. Cool in pans on racks. Unmold, remove paper, wrap in plastic wrap and chill until serving. Cake keeps for at least two weeks in fridge. Ours never lasts that long...NOTE: This year's batter was so full of ingredients that I was able to bake a third loaf in a smaller-sized pan. I cut its baking time to 45 minutes once I had removed the foil from the cakes.