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!

What's occurin'?

OK. So we're not at the well known end of Argyle Street. But we are at the really interesting end of Argyle Street, not long before it merges onto Dumbarton road, enroute to Kelvingrove (Gallery and Park) and with an increasingly interesting mix of one off shops, cafes and restaurants.

You won't find many chain stores at this end of Argyle Street - instead we've got a pop up designer clothing shop - Think Boutique (this is it's last weekend, so you might want to head on over because once it's gone it's gone!) and The Shop of Interest at 1058 Argyle Street (almost opposite The Hidden Lane entrance). The latter has an ever increasing and ever changing collection of bespoke works by local arts and crafts people.

Then of course there's the Hidden Lane Gallery itself - set up by Joe Mulholland in the old hearse and limousine gallery of the nearby funeral undertakers. There are some really interesting exhibitions going on here and it is also a very lovely wee space.

And of course, once you have exhausted yourselves with all of your wandering and browsing, you will almost definitely, very certainly, and most deservedly require a nice cup of tea and a slice of cake. In my lovely little tearoom.

Love is in the air..