Mom's Chocolate Fruitcake

Every year for the past few years now, my mother has been making chocolate fruit cake. She used to make a light fruit cake years ago, but we always seemed to have leftovers, since unfortunately fruitcake usually has a bad reputation. Not this fruitcake though.  Add some chocolate, and this fruitcake is delicious! My mother discovered the recipe in a cooking novel a few years ago, and we were intrigued by it. So much so, we decided to try it that year, and we have been making it ever since. This fruitcake contains a large proportion of cocoa powder to make the batter very chocolatey. Instead of the usual chopped mixed peel and overabundance of raisins and other unidentifiable fruit, this fruitcake simply contains chopped glace red cherries, which really adds some nice color, along with just a touch of other fruit. It also contains shredded coconut and miniature semi-sweet chocolate chips for some more chocolatey flavor. And of course it contains the usual spices, molasses, butter, eggs, flour, and all that jazz. I believe the recipe also calls for chopped nuts, and maybe some other fruit too, but we leave those out. And of course there is some liquor in the recipe, we use rum. This fruitcake can be wrapped in liquor soaked cheesecloth and allowed to age or store, but we usually don't bother with that, as we find the recipe itself has enough alcohol. If you try to eat a fresh piece of this fruitcake, it will seem more like you are drinking a glass or rum. We let it age at room temperature for a few days, try some to make sure it is good, and then usually freeze it in pieces for closer to Christmastime. The recipe also makes a big batch - four 9x5 inch loaves, but we always have the recipe. This fruitcake is quite rich and delicious, and can be cut into fairly small pieces so a little goes a long way. Although it can become quite addictive. Mom is making a batch of this fruitcake today, and I cannot wait to try it! It is certainly much better than any fruitcake you could ever buy in a store. Here is the fruitcake already packaged up for later, plus two small pieces saved for sampling.