Christmas is my favourite time of year. What’s not to love? You get time off work; Santa Claus pays you a visit; you get to eat your own body weight in turkey, mince pies and plum pudding; and if you live in the Southern Hemisphere like me, you get to spend time at the beach. Apart from family feuds, unwanted weight gain and the stress of wanting to punch people in the head as you do your Christmas shopping, it truly is a magical time of year.

Another thing that I love just as much as Christmas is cake. So, combine Christmas and cake and BAM, you have two of my favourite things combined – Christmas cake. I can’t believe it’s been a year since I baked my first ever Christmas cake. Being a sentimentalist at heart, I thought it best to make an annual tradition of this cake-making ritual.

This year’s piece de resistance is somewhat of a departure from last year’s recipe. It’s sans gluten, i.e. gluten-free. Don’t worry, it’s still swimming in all the good stuff, like a few gallons of brandy and a truckload of fruit mince, so it’s not like the gluten will even be missed.

Gluten-free Christmas cake

But here’s the thing. I haven’t yet tasted the cake. Normally, dear readers, I taste everything before I publish it on my blog, but as I’m under strict instructions to wait until Christmas Day before cutting the cake (yawn), I can’t really tell you if it’s any good. But what I can tell you is it smells bloody good and I found the recipe on one of my favourite websites, Taste, so I’m hedging my bets that we’re onto a winner.

So what can I tell you about this wondrous cake that I haven’t yet eaten? The secret ingredient (apart from White Wings gluten-free flour mixture which is really good, by the way) is 1kg of fruit mixture which I soaked in the good part of a bottle of brandy for a whole week. But the best part (apart from licking the bowl) was pouring a quarter of a cup of brandy over the hot cake and inhaling the gorgeous scent.

This cake has well and truly been pickled with brandy.

Once the cake had cooled, I glazed it with apricot jam and studded it with pretty jewels in the way of glace cherries.

So, there you have it. My first ever gluten-free Christmas cake. Stay tuned post-Christmas for my review of said cake. Meanwhile, thanks for reading Amy’s Cookbook this year. See you next year with a new-look and renamed Amy’s Cookbook! Merry Christmas!