Overnight Cake
This recipe from my mother became a staple in our family - partly because it has no butter or grease in it, partly because it's basic and can be easily doctored up with strawberries or lemon pudding or whatever suits your fancy, partly because it freezes (and thaws) so well and is therefore handy at a moment's notice.  It's sort of like a moister denser angel food cake.

2 cups flour (cake flour is best)
2 cups sugar
1 cup boiling water
6 egg whites
1 tsp cream of tartar
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. baking powder

Sift together the flour and sugar.  Add the boiling water.  Beat well, set aside, and let stand overnight!
In the morning, beat the egg whites until frothy.  Add cream of tartar and salt.  Beat until stiff, adding the vanilla.  Sprinkle the baking powder over the egg white mixture and mix well.  Fold into the flour mixture and mix well.
Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees in an ungreased 9" x 13" pan.

Tiny Tim Fruitcakes
Of all my favorite recipes, this one has the most ingredients and is the most time consuming.  However, it's worth it!  If you ever go to the trouble to purchase the perfect little baking pans and all the ingredients, you'll have the basics.  And if you ever taste these little fruitcakes, you will not be disappointed.  They're simply out of this world, sort of like Tiny Tiny and the rest of the Charles Dickens characters.  I got this recipe years ago from an old neighborhood friend, Karol Plocher.  My mom makes a batch every year at Christmas time.

1 cup butter
1 ½ cup packed brown sugar
2 beaten eggs
2 ½ cup flour
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. salt
4 slices cut-up candied pineapple
½ lb. cut-up candied cherries
2 lbs. cut-up dates
1 cup filberts
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup chopped walnuts

Cream together the butter and sugar.  Add beaten eggs.  Mix some of the flour with the cut-up fruit.  Then sift together the rest of the flour, the soda, cinnamon, and salt.  Mix all of the ingredients together.
Drop from spoon into tiny greased muffin tins.  Bake 20 minutes at 350 degrees.  Cool and then brush with a glaze made by combining equal parts of white corn syrup and water, boiled one minute.  Top with a bit of red or green candied cherry and brush with glaze again.
Make about 125 "cookies."  They freeze very well.

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