Christmas season is coming, especially this year it might be slightly different and more complicated, but it doesn’t mean that we need to abandon all Christmas preparations! Actually maybe we should do the exact opposite, and make this Christmas the best we can?

For my first Christmas recipe I chose very quick and easy cake you can make even if you don’t have major baking skills. It’s made with regular sugar and wheat flour, so please keep it in mind if you’re on gluten free or low carb diet. My plan is to post different types of Christmas recipes, as I also give myself a permission to consume this Christmas less healthy stuff, especially when it comes to sweet baked goodies. What would be a Christmas dinner with your family or friends if you cannot fully enjoy the food you’ve made? So for that reason I give you all permission to take the best from Christmas 🙂 Of course within reason!

Christmas jogurt cake with blackcurrants is one of my old recipes, that was a bit an experiment but came out really delicious. There’s also a funny story about this cake, which shows that even if it seems that you have everything covered and is ticking like a Swiss watch, something unexpected can always surprise you. The most important thing is then, not to lose heart and find a different solution. I have this strange ailment that I test all experiments on important occasions, such as Christmas. Especially when it comes to baking. Instead of testing the recipe a week or at least a few days earlier, I take the risk and possible disaster on the chin. And that’s how this cake has been done.

So let’s move to Christmas Eve couple years ago…

Looking in my head for an idea for an easy Christmas cake that would be quick to prepare and did not require refrigeration, I remembered the fabulously simple yet delicious yogurt cake that I made couple years before in Summer. It just needed some festive tuning. Wandering around the baking section in the store, I came across a pack of tasty-looking dried blackcurrants and decided that it would be a great alternative to raisins that I do not like (who does not like raisins?). Ready-made cake idea. At home, I had a bar of white chocolate, which in my mind, along with the currants, was an elegant finish to the yogurt cake. Apart from currants, I decided to add some orange marmalade to the batter for an additional Christmas flavor.

The preparations for Christmas Eve went smoothly, food was cooking on the stove, filling for dumplings was ready, and the dough cooled down and waited for the white chocolate and blackcurrant topping. Exactly. Reaching back to the previous time, when I needed to melt the chocolate in the microwave (that was these days when I had a microwave), it should take about 3 minutes. So I broke the chocolate into smaller pieces, put it in the microwave and set the timer for 3 minutes. In the meantime, our flatmates (that was these days when we had flatmates) returned from shopping, we started chatting, when it suddenly turned out that the microwave was smoking. Of course, from inside of the microwave. I instinctively opened the door and the kitchen filled with nasty gray smoke. All the festive smells that had tickled our noses so far have been replaced by the burning smell. Smoke sensor! I quickly shut the microwave and opened the windows – visit of the fire brigade on Christmas Eve was not my dream gift. Fortunately, the alarm didn’t switched on, but the chocolate bowl, finally removed from the microwave, presented at least a strange sight. Half of the chocolate turned from white to a slightly charcoal brown, and the other half remained white and only partially melted. I definitely should have stop the microwave and give a chocolate a good stir couple times, but as we’ve been chatting about shopping… The fact is that my Christmas cake had lost its topping because it was my only white chocolate, so I had to think of something else.

(By the way – burnt white chocolate mixed with unburned white chocolate tastes surprisingly good, only it is extremely sweet).

That’s how my cake finished with icing on top instead of elegant white chocolate. By the way the cake came out great – moist, not too sweet and fluffy. If you wish to swap icing with white chocolate – go ahead! Just be careful if you melt chocolate in the microwave! 🙂

Anyway, this Christmas cake is very easy to make, you don’t even need a mixer. Simply whisk all the ingredients and pop into the oven. Will you give it a try?

Healthy note: instead of regular sugar you can use more healthy sugar alternative like xylitol, erythritol, coconut sugar, stevia.

christmas jogurt cake with blackcurrants

NOTE: my measuring cup is 250 ml regular glass

INGREDIENTS for 23cm/9inch round baking tray:

• 500 ml natural jogurt
• 150 ml vegetable oil
• 2 tsp baking soda
• ½ cup of sugar
• 2½ cup plain flour
• 1 large egg
• lemon juice squeezed from half of a lemon
• 2 tbsp orange marmalade
• 1½ cup dried blackcurrants
• ½ cup powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS

Take a large bowl and using a spoon or a whisk combine all the wet products such as yogurt, oil, egg, lemon juice and orange marmalade. Then add baking soda, sugar and combine everything again. Finally, add the flour and combine until it’s smooth and thick. Now all that’s left is to sprinkle a cup of dried blackcurrants (leave half a cup to decorate the top of the cake) and give it a good stir.

Set the oven to 160ºC (upper and lower heater) or, if you have only upper heater, to 150ºC with a fan. Pour the batter into a baking tray and bake it for about 50 minutes. Or until dry toothpick – take a toothpick or a wooden skewer and pierce the cake, if the skewer comes out clean – it means that cake is ready.

After baking, cool down, simply leave the oven door slightly open. When the dough is cool, prepare the icing. Mix the powdered sugar with 2-3 tablespoons of hot water to obtain a smooth, but quite thick mass. Add half a cup of currants, stir and put on top of the cake. Wait for the frosting to set and the cake is ready to eat.

You can store it in room temperature for about 4 days.

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