Combine all the fruit mix ingredients the night before.
Extra credit cooks bonus! Grab two rocks glasses add an ice cube to each then pour the remaining apricot nectar into the glasses. In one glass add a shot of spiced rum and in the other add a shot of gran gala. Enjoy!
Pre heat oven to 325.
Pull the fruit mix out of the refrigerator. Zest and juice the orange and the lemon. Add both juices to the fruit mix. Set zest aside.
Toast the nuts in a skillet. Let cool, rough chop and side aside for later.
Whisk all dry cake ingredients together including the citrus zest. If you do not have the Lebkuchengewurz spice blend on hand, your favorite holiday spice blend will also work.
Cream the butter and sugar together. Then add the eggs one at a time.
Add the dry ingredients into the wet and combine thoroughly.
Mix the nuts into the fruit mix.
Grease 2 loaf pans.
Stir the fruit nut mixture into the batter. Do this by hand and use a spatula with some strength. The batter is dense and will give your arm a good workout!
Distribute the batter evenly between the 2 loaf pans. Tap them on the counter lightly to make sure the batter is settled on the bottom.
Bake for about an hour and a half. After an hour start checking them by putting a butter knife in the middle to see if it comes out clean.
When done let cool and turn them out onto a cutting board.
Once completely cooled move to a vessel large enough for both to have space around them and lid. We used a cake carrier.
You can eat right away, but we are going to wait at least two weeks. During this long wait we will be spritzing with spiced rum roughly every 3 days.
See not so scary!
