Only-Technically-A-Fruitcake Cake

1 cup peeled, chopped apples
1 cup chopped dried fruit*
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup boiling water
½ cup butter or margarine
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
¼ cup butter (you can use margarine, but it isn't nearly as good)
½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup milk
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
*Note: almost any dried fruit you can think of goes well here. I believe the original recipe called for dates or raisins, but I have used almost every dried fruit I could find.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.


Combine apples, dried fruit, boiling water and baking soda in a bowl of some sort. This will henceforth be called the 'fruit mixture'

Cream the 1/2 cup of butter and white sugar; add egg and vanilla. This is now to be called the 'creamy sugary mixture'.

Mix flour and salt together then alternate adding the flour mixture and the fruit mixture to the creamy sugary mixture.

Pour into a lightly greased 8x8 inch pan. Bake for 50 minutes.

Put the 1/4 cup butter, brown sugar, milk and shredded coconut in a saucepan and cook over low heat until the butter and sugar melt.

Pull the cake out of the oven for a moment, and spread the mixture from the saucepan on top of the cake.

Return the cake to the oven until the topping is all brown and yummy looking. Putting the cake under the broiler works incredibly well in this situation.

Cool, and eat. I suggest you eat it with milk, or the lactose-free milk-substitute of your choice.