Lemon Blueberry Cream Cheese Bread

I've been meaning to post this recipe and just haven't had the time between packing and heading back to California for the holidays. At any rate, I wanted to share this amazing bread recipe that I made last weekend for a friend's brunch. I had a bunch of blueberries that I wanted to use and adapted a recipe that I found on the Pioneer Women Blog. I've modified the original recipe as I wanted to make a lemon blueberry bread and not an orange blueberry bread and I found that the measurements/directions were a bit off. Don't be overwhelmed by the number of steps...The bread is very easy to make and it's SO delicious!

Lemon Blueberry Cream Cheese Bread

One of the issues I found with this recipe is that you end up with almost 2x the amount of cream cheese filling than you actually need. So, what I recommend is either doubling the bread measurements (you would make two bread loaves) or just use a portion of the cream cheese filling. Several of the initial reviews of this recipe complained that their bread loaves over-flowed in the oven and made a mess due to the amount of cream cheese filling.
  
Ingredients:

For the Filling:

• 8 ounces, weight Cream Cheese
• ½ cups Sugar
• 1 Tablespoon Flour
• 1 whole Egg
• 1/2 of a lemon

For the Bread:

• ½ cups Butter
• ½ cups Sugar
• ¼ teaspoons Salt
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 2 whole Egg Yolks
• 1-½ cup All-pupose Flour
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• ⅓ cups Milk
• 2 Cups Blueberries
• 1 Tablespoon All-purpose Flour
• 2 whole Egg Whites
• ¼ cups White Sugar

For the Glaze:

• 2 Tablespoons Sugar
• ½ teaspoons Vanilla
• 1 teaspoon Water

 Directions:

Make the Filling:

1. In a medium bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar, 1 tablespoon flour, egg and lemon juice from half of a lemon; beat until smooth. Only use the measurements listed in the ingredients section under Filling. Place the bowl aside.

Make the Bread:

1. Grease a bread pan (I used Pam spray) and preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Using the ingredients listed under the Bread, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. 
3. Add salt and vanilla and mix until combined. Add egg yolks (be sure to save the egg whites in a bowl as you will use them later. Finally, add the milk to this mixture.
4. In another bowl, combine flour and baking powder. Add this mixture to the egg and milk mixture. Be sure not to pour all of the flour mixture in at once. Pour half the flour mixture, and mix until combined. Then pour the remaining mixture until well combined.
5. In a small bowl, coat blueberries with 1 tablespoon flour and add them to the batter. 
6. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Add sugar (1/4 cup), 1 tablespoon at a time, and beat until stiff peaks form. Fold egg whites into batter.  

Make the Glaze:

1. Stir together sugar, vanilla, and water.

 Preparing the layers:

1. Pour half of the blueberry batter into the greased bread pan.
2. Layer half of the filling over the blueberry batter. There should be a half inch layer of cream cheese filling.
3. Pour the remaining amount of batter on top of the cream cheese filling and attempt to smooth the dough. Be sure to not fill the pan all the way up as your batter will spill over. It's also okay if you can't get it entirely smooth. (If you decided to double the dough mixture, then repeat these directions using the remaining cream cheese filling.)
4. Pour glaze over the top of the unbaked blueberry loaf.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 55-60 minutes. Note: I cooked mine for about 80 minutes until my cake tester came out smooth. Just check the bread regularly starting at 50 minutes.
6. Take the bread out of the oven and let it rest about 10 minutes before trying to remove it from the pan.