Raw Apple Fruit Cake

Almost everybody hates fruit cake these days.  The ones you buy in the store are the reason for that.  They don't taste good.  But, years ago my dad and his friend Elmo made a delicious raw apple fruit cake.  I have never made it, but this year I might.  I am including the recipe so that I can find it when I want it and for your possible enjoyment.

3 cups sliced raw apples

1 cup chopped dates

1 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)

2 large Tablespoons of butter (I am not sure what a large tablespoon is)

3 eggs

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1 level teaspoon baking soda

6 tablespoons boiling water

Directions--

Cream butter and sugar and eggs dissolved in hot water and then add flour and other ingredients.

Place in round pan like a springform or angel food cake pan.  Bake at 300 or 325 until raised and then lower heat to 250 for an hour and a half. Cool and wrap in wax paper.  Best not served for a few days or weeks?

This was Dad and Elmo's recipe.  I am not sure where they got it.  It would have been at least before WW II because that was when my dad and Elmo were friends who lived near each other. They may have shared a rooming house when they were in college before the War.  Eventually my mom made the recipe every year and it is her scribbled copy that I am transcribing here. It is an old recipe.