Cakes for happy days

Last week I made a lot of cake. Mum had a wedding at Lunga and three 'pudding cakes' were required - cakes that can be cut ceremoniously but eaten as a pudding. Don't know about anyone else, but I hate fruit cake. And I hate marzipan and I hate rock hard royal icing, and how everyone always politely moves the constituent parts around their plates to make it look like they really are eating Christmas cake by another name.

Anyway, the groom was Irish, the bride Scottish and they lived in America, so we came up with the idea of  a chocolate guinness cake, a Cranachan sponge and a lemon and apricot cake with Philadelphia cream to drizzle. And even though I say so myself, these were gods of cakes. Mum did the finishing touches at Lunga and they were served with huge bowls of strawberries, chocolate ganache sauce and lightly whipped double cream. And not a single bit of Royal Icing in sight!