Banana Fruit Cake

3/4 cup butter, room temperature
2 cups brown sugar
4 eggs
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup chopped walnuts
3 cups candied fruit
1 cup crushed pineapple
2 cups chopped dates
1 Tablespoon orange juice
1 teaspoon grated orange rind
1/2 teaspoons orange extract
 1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas

Prepare two loaf pans (9"x5") and preheat the oven to 300 degrees.  In a large bowl combine the fruit, dates, and walnuts. dredge them with 1/4 cup of the flour. Sift the remaining flour together with the baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Set the bowl aside.
In another bowl cream together the butter and the sugar and beat the mixture until it is light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Beat in the orange rind, orange juice and orange extract. Mash the bananas with a fork. Alternately stir in the bananas and flour mixture into the creamed mixture. Stir in the flour fruits and nuts.

Turn into the prepared pans and bake for 2 hours or until a skewer inserted into the middle of each cake comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 20 minutes, then turn our onto baking racks. Each loaf makes 12 servings.