Easy Holiday Cream Cheese Fruit Cake Loaf (No Alcohol)
Course: Cakes, Christmas Cake
Cuisine: Asian Fusion
Prep Time: 25 minutesminutes
Cook Time: 1 hourhour
Total Time: 1 hourhour25 minutesminutes
Servings: 19 x 5 inch loaf
Author: Marvellina
This super easy to make cream cheese fruit cake loaf is the opposite of the old-fashioned dense and heavy fruit cake. This cake has a light and fluffy texture and studded with dried fruits and infused with a great aroma from cream cheese and butter.
Soak the dried fruit, except for candied cherries, in warm water for about 15 minutes. Strain off liquid. Mix with the candied cherries. Sift in the flour and toss to coat the dried fruit mix. Set aside. This step is to prevent the dried fruit from sinking to the bottom of the pan. They will hold on to the cake batter much better and rise with the cake.
Prepare cake batter:
Spray the loaf pan with non-stick spray or lightly brush with some oil. Line the bottom of the loaf pan with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 325 F (160 C). Cream the softened cream cheese and butter until they are combined. Add sugar and mix until they are creamy. Add egg, one at a time, and beat until combined and scrape the side of the bowl each time
Sift in the flour, baking powder, all-spice powder and salt. Fold them into the mixture until well combined. Take care not to over stirring them too much. Fold in the dried fruit mix you prepared earlier and lemon extract
Baking:
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Use a rubber spatula to smooth the top. Place in the preheated oven, middle rack and bake for the next 60-70 minutes or until cake tester inserted comes out clean. If the top of the cake browns too quickly at the end of cooking time and the cake is still not cooked through yet, you can tent it with aluminum foil and bake on a 5-minute increment until the tester comes out clean
Cooling down:
Let the cake cools down in the pan for 10 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack to let it cools down completely before cutting or wrapping for gifting
Notes
You can use regular all-purpose flour, but the texture just won't be as soft. Please don't substitute with gluten-free flour even though most claim it works 1:1 but it doesn't.