Tropical Fruit Cake

The Christmas cake did turn out and it is surprisingly good.  Little did I realize that finding the fruit wasn't going to be the only challenge though.  My oven is regulated in Celsius not Fahrenheit but thanks to online metric converter tables and oven thermometers that was not too difficult to manage.  The tricky part was lighting the pilot light in the gas oven.  Brian was away, so after following his telephone instructions and having no luck, and not giving up on the pans neatly lined with paper and filled with fruit batter, I finally called my neighbour to help.  On the top of the stove elements there is a glass plate that normally lays down flat when the stove is not in use.  I didn't realize that it also has to be raised up for the oven to work!  Who would have known.

After all of the modifications I've had to make in various countries, I've come to the conclusion that this recipe hardly matters.  Just add whatever fruit you can in whatever form you can find it and cook it until it feels done.  Then enjoy, which I did yesterday when I invited my next door neighbour, Maria Elena, over to see our house, and to taste the results of our trip together to Abastos market in Guadalajara.