We made this cocoa cream cheese cake for the evening of December 25, when another group of my wonderful extended family gathered around the table. If I count everyone in my blended family — my parents’ new partners and their children — there are already 15 of us, and when spouses and children are added, the number easily exceeds 20. But somehow this enormous group of people is endlessly cozy and cheerful!
In any case, the crowd wanted cake, so I took inventory of the refrigerator to see what was left and what could somehow be turned into something cake-like. The local village store, of course, doesn’t stock lactose-free products, so going shopping was out of the question.
Luckily, there was quite a lot of cream cheese, sour cream, and lingonberry jam in the kitchen. I added some cocoa as well, because really — who doesn’t like chocolate?! And it seemed that a chocolatey cream cheese cake with lingonberry jam would be exactly the right thing.