Betty Buice’s Friendship Cake

Ingredients:

1 pt. starter
1 - 16 oz can lite sliced peaches ,
cut into tidbits
1 - 20 oz can pineapple tidbits
3 - 6 oz jars maraschino cherries
7 1/2 cups sugar
2 box butter golden or yellow cake mix
2 box instant vanilla pudding mix
8 eggs
1 1/3 cup Wesson cooking oil
2 cup raisins, optional
2 cup walnuts, optional
2 cup pecans, optional
2 cup coconut, optional

Day One: Pour starter into glass gallon jar. Add can of peaches and juice. Add 2 1/2 cups sugar and stir. Cover loosely with paper towel or cloth. Keep at room temperature. Stir every day for 10 days. Sugar may take several days to dissolve. Don’t cover air tight.

Day 10: Add pineapple tidbits and juice. Add 2 1/2 cups sugar. Continue stirring daily for 10 more days, your starter has changed color and will foam when stirred.

Day 20: Add 3 jars cherries, drained, and cut each cherry in half. Add 2 1/2 cups sugar and stir for te next 10 days. The cherries will give your starter back its pinkish color.

Day 31: You will bake your cakes. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Grease and flour 2 tube bundt pans or 10 small loaf pans. Drain fruit in a bowl, saving juice. Pour joice into 3 or 4 pint jars. Mix cakes one at a time. Pour 1 bix cake mix, i box instant udding mix, 4 eggs, half of the fruit, 2/3 cups oil into bowl. Stir until well mixed. Add 1 cup each of raisins, walnuts, pecans and coconut. Pour into one of the large pans or five of the small pans. Bake 60 to 90 minutes or until a straw inserted comes out clean. Repeat for second cake. Bake one at a time.

Note: The three or four pints of juice are the starts. Keep 1 and share the others. Never refrigerate the start and use within 3 or 4 days after the fruit is drained. Cake may be frozen.