Wine Fruit Bars

These are as close as I come to my Grandmother’s brandy fruitcakes. I really do not like fruit cake and we all like these bars. They are easy to make and you could change the fruit being used as long as you keep the same amounts. If using larger pieces of fruit, cut them up smaller. This will, however, give you the fruit cake taste only really a lot better. I changed the recipe in that I bake them in a jelly roll pan and the recipe calls for a 13 x 9 pan. I really feel that they would be way to thick and take forever to bake. 

They are from  Southern Living cookbook Our Best Recipes Volume three and the southern cooks do a lot of cooking with liquor. As you will notice, I used Cream Sherry as my sweet wine as it was what I had on hand. We decided we could just eat the fruit and forget the bars, but the bars are better.

Wine Fruit Bars

1 1/2 cups currants

1 1/2 cups raisins (I used Golden)

1 1/2 cups candied cherries, halved

1 1/2 cups chopped candied pineapple

1 1/2 cups sweet wine (I used Cream Sherry)

1/2 cup butter softened

1 1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar

3 eggs

2 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

Lemon Glaze

Combine fruit and wine in a bowl. cover and let mixture stand 24 hour or longer, drain fruit and discard wine.

Cream, butter and sugar; add eggs, beating until light and fluffy. Combine dry ingredients and stir into creamed mixture. Blend in the soaked fruit.

Spread dough in a greased jelly roll pan. Bake at 325° about 35 minutes or until tooth pick in center comes out with just a few crumbs on it.

Cool; drizzle with Lemon Glaze. Cut into about 35 bars.

Lemon Glaze 

1 cup sifted powdered sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons milk. 

Combine until smooth. If necessary to make a proper consistency add more 

milk a little at a time This a glaze not a frosting so it should be thin.
Just a warning, The longer these set, the stronger the alcohol flavor is. These are not bars to feed to children.