3 pound cake with fruit filling Recipes

cognac or other brandy, golden raisins, currants, dried apricots, finely chopped, dried cranberries, whole blanched almonds plus 1/3 cup for top of cake (6 ouncecs total), sugar, divided, all-purpose flour, baking powder, salt, unsalted butter, softened, eggs, pure vanilla extract, grated orange zest, sweet orange marmalade or apricot preserves, orange-flavored liqueur

cake, cut in 3/4 inch slices, prepared vanilla pudding, mandarin orange segments (juice pack or in light syrup), cherry pie filling, pitted dark sweet cherries, bananas, sliced and sprinkled with a little lemon juice to maintain color, frozen whole strawberries