Dad always made things with dates, raisins, dark brown sugar,molasses and nuts. I think he added some fruit juice extract. He loved fresh pineapple juice.

He also made his own version of a healthy fruit cake. It was quite an involved process with lots of dried fruit and like a fruit cake it lasted forever.

Most of his recipes were never written down, although there might be index cards floating around with a list of ingredients. I am searching for this.