I've been working for a number of years to come up with something that's got a lot of the remembered goodness of fruitcake without the heavy richness that most of us don't care for anymore.
It's box mix dependent, so probably not helpful to overseas folk; the cranberry orange muffin mix is 12-muffin size; the banana nut muffin mix is half that size. Anyroad, this turned out fairly well, so sharing it in case anyone's interested....
--pig
Fruit Bites
1 one pint (16 oz) tub of candied fruit and peel, filled to the top a week or more before with rum 1 box of Krusteaz cranberry orange muffin mix 1 envelope of Martha White banana nut muffin mix 1 cup maraschino cherry liquid Put muffin mixes into bowl. Do not drain the tin of cranberries in the mix, but put all in the bowl. Add one cup of liquid from bottled maraschino cherries, and empty the fruit tub into the bowl. Stir until mixed and thoroughly moistened, then put in the muffin tins. Top each muffin with a few slivered almonds.Can be baked in mini muffin tins (in papers) or in regular muffin tins (in cupcake papers). Bake at 350 for 15 minutes for mini-muffins or 25 minutes for full size muffins (or until set).