Ingredients

• 1 ½ cup dried currants
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoon blackberry cordial or other wine
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon cloves
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• 1 cup Alaska sourdough starter
• ½ teaspoon mace
• 6 tablespoon butter
• 3 cups candied fruit (green and red cherries, pineapple, orange, citron and ginger)
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3 eggs (well beaten)
• 1 cup chopped nuts
• 2 tablespoon grated lemon rind

Directions

• Directions
• Soak raisins and currants in 1 cup wine overnight. Remove starter from refrigerator and set, tightly covered in warm place overnight. It should be in at least a two cups container as it will just about double its volume overnight.
• In the morning, cream butter with sugar and beat in eggs and lemon rind. Drain wine from raisins into creamed mixture. Stir in starter and 3 cups of the flour sifted with the soda, salt and spices. Sprinkle the remaining 1 cup of flour over the fruit and nuts in a large bowl. Toss and shake until well coated. Add to batter and mix thoroughly.
• Turn into loaf pans which have been generously buttered. Let stand in warm place for 30 minutes. Bake in preheated oven to 300 with a pan of water on floor of oven and rack as near as possible in the middle of oven. Bake about 2 ½ hours for medium-sized loaves watching carefully to see that they do not brown to quickly.
• Test with toothpick. Remove from pan, turn pans on side and allow to set for a few minutes before taking from pans. When cold drip 2 tablespoon of wine over each cake. As soon as it is absorbed, wrap tightly in cellophane freezer paper and store in refrigerator or freezer.