In case you didn't believe me about the seventeen pounds - ecco!

Okay maybe not exactly seventeen pounds, because you have to subtract the weight of the aluminum canning pot, but close enough.

Here is the glorious batter.  That pan is 12 inches in diameter and 7 inches high.

The next challenge was collecting enough pans, greasing them, and forcing in wax paper that really did not want to conform  to the shape of the pans.  I gave up on the ring mold (which now means the ring mold fruitcake doesn't want to come out of the pan, damn it).  Then I spooned out seventeen pounds of fruitcake batter among the badly papered pans, and spent the next two hours babysitting the cakes as they baked, because each one had a different baking time, due to size.  At least I wasn't doing it in Dogpatch's ancient brick baking oven. 

I'm also grateful I didn't have to seed my raisins and chop everything by hand.  (I did, however, grate a nutmeg manually).  Fruitcake-making is a lot of work, but nothing like it must have once been. 

Hand-grated nutmeg, nutmeg contributed by my neighbor Becky, who  is a purist about grating nutmeg and cardamom fresh, and she has completely converted me. 

And here are my seventeen pounds of fruitcake, which I must now cheesecloth, brandy, and hide away in air-tight containers.

 This was an adventure, and I may never do it again, but it was worth it.  Cake that lasts forever and actually improves with age is one of the more brilliant foodstuffs human beings have invented, you fruitcake loathers notwithstanding. 

Of course, now I have to wash almost every bowl and pan and pot lid I own, along with the very sticky food processor, but I have running hot water, so I am not complaining.