This cake was very special to us. My husbands parents were about to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, so our family threw them a surprise banquet in our garden.

For dessert I wanted to make a replica of their square column-tiered wedding cake. The difference was, instead of the fruit cake they had, each tier here was a different flavour, and none of them fruit.

It stood next to the framed photo of my in-laws cutting their original cake and when my mother-in-law saw it, she started to cry.