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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 glace 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).
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2
Preheat the oven to 325u00b0F
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3
Cream the butter and sugar together. Mix in the cream cheese.
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4
Add the eggs in one at a time, mixing after each addition. Add the vanilla extract.
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5
In another bowl, mix the dry ingredients: 2 cups flour, the baking powder, and the salt.
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6
Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients; the batter will be quite thick.
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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.
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8
Spray a loaf pan (9x5 in) with nonstick spray and line the bottom of the pan with a rectangle of parchment paper.
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9
Scrape your batter into the loaf pan, smoothing the top.
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10
Place in the oven and let bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.
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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.
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12
Let your cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to finish cooking.
