Cream Cheese Fruitcake

Total Time: 1 hr 10 mins Preparation Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 1 hr

Ingredients

• 8 ounces cream cheese
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4-1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups mixed nuts and dried fruit
• 1/2 cup flour, to coat dried fruit

Recipe

• 1 to make the fruit & nut mix, chop up an assortment of dried fruits and nuts of your choice. typically, my mom uses raisins, pineapple, papaya, green & red glacé cherries, and pecans. smaller dried fruits like raisins don't need to be cut, but dice up the other fruits and the nuts. now measure out 3 cups worth of the mixture and mix it up with the remaining 1/2 cup of flour (this is done so that the fruits and nuts won't all sink to the bottom of your cake when baking).
• 2 preheat the oven to 325°f
• 3 cream the butter and sugar together. mix in the cream cheese.
• 4 add the eggs in one at a time, mixing after each addition. add the vanilla extract.
• 5 in another bowl, mix the dry ingredients: 2 cups flour, the baking powder, and the salt.
• 6 fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients; the batter will be quite thick.
• 7 when barely any streaks remain, mix in the flour-covered fruit & nut mix. only on few strokes of your spatula are needed; do not overmix.
• 8 spray a loaf pan (9x5 in) with nonstick spray and line the bottom of the pan with a rectangle of parchment paper.
• 9 scrape your batter into the loaf pan, smoothing the top.
• 10 place in the oven and let bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.
• 11 if near the end of baking, the inside of the cake is still wet but the top is browning too quickly, cover the top with a sheet of foil.
• 12 let your cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to finish cooking.