Having always enjoyed baking and succeeding in making a few very good looking cakes from time to time, when it came to choosing my own wedding cake I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted it to look and taste like.

At every wedding I had ever attended, guests were served a huge meal, and just at the end when they were full to bursting, the wedding cake was cut and served. I always thought of how inappropriate it felt to have heavy fruitcake covered in marzipan at the end of a three course meal, and everyone around me always looked like they were struggling too.

So at my wedding I opted for a more informal buffet arrangement, with lots of lovely dishes, but giving guests the flexibility to mingle with whom they pleased. We had marquees setup in a wonderful big garden, and the wedding cake was the center piece of the desserts table. It looked gorgeous and it was just what I wanted: Mainly because I had made it myself.

Like many brides, when I first thought about baking my own wedding cake, my first reaction was to dismiss the idea. Since I wanted a cake with fresh ingredients, it would have to be made the day before, and surely the day before my wedding would be a hectic time during which I needed to concentrate on making all the plans and work of 8 months come together in one successful event... and make myself look pretty!

The problem - or at least one of them - was that my wedding was going to happen in a small village in the English countryside, far away from the chic London patisseries where I had seen my perfect cake, and try as I might, I could not find anyone that would deliver it that far for less than a small fortune. Having baked cakes myself, my mind balked at the idea of paying around £500 for a cake which I knew I could make. The second option was to try and get a local caterer to do it, but trying to explain to him that I did not under any circumstances want fruit cake was like banging my head against a brick wall. I finally gave up and started doing some research.

The main reason why people try to convince you that fruitcake is best for a wedding is mainly for their own convenience. It can be made months in advance, it holds its shape beautifully, it's easy to decorate and you can put one cake on top of the other to form layers. The light sponge cake I wanted would not hold the weight of another cake, much less the three tiers I had my heart set on. The solution came from where many other wedding solutions had come from: EBay. There I found a three tier metal stand that would hold each cake individually. The second problem to tackle was the look of the cake. I wanted each cake to be completely surrounded by white chocolate cigarillos (thin rolled tubes of chocolate), but they proved very hard to find at a reasonable price. I finally found them on a website called Imaginative Icing http://imaginativeicing.co.uk/ and then all that was left was the small matter of making the cakes.

After a few practice runs where friends and colleagues happily critiqued the results, I decided on a light golden sponge filled with fresh whipped cream mixed with tinned summer fruit, topped with white chocolate mousse. I left out the final expensive touches in these practice runs, but they were still very beautiful cakes. I can't stress enough how important it was to practice these recipes before the big day, because to get it just right I found out that I had to make several adjustment, including lowering the oven temperature, as the one recommended in my recipe book was much too high, and caused the golden syrup in the mix to burn black on top before the cake was anywhere near cooked through.

I took all that I needed to the house of my future parents in-law, and recruited my bridesmaid as a kitchen helper. As the day before my wedding dawned she arrived and we began the 4 hour process of making my cake. I felt a bit like a general marshalling the troops as I gave out my instructions, which included taking the cakes to the next door neighbor's oven, which ran at a lower and steady temperature than my in-law's AGA. The wedding was such a wonderful village affair, with everyone pitching in and offering to help where they could. I even had one of the village guests bringing exquisite berries from her own garden to help decorate the cakes.

When the cakes were ready and cool, I drizzled some of the berry syrup mixed with a dash of rum onto the cakes, whipped the cream to a firm consistency, mixed the berries in, and filled each one. I then whipped the chocolate mousse, which I had prepared the night before and chilled overnight, and covered the top and sides of each cake with it. The best thing about this cake, considering that I was under a bit of pressure, was that I did not have to worry too much about smoothing the mousse on the cakes, as the top and sides would be covered by the decorations.

With a little help from my friends I then stuck the cigarillos around each cake, and tied them in place with beautiful lace ribbons. This is important as it stops any rogue cigarillo from dropping away before the mousse chills and sets it into place, but it also looks really lovely and you can use any color ribbon and tie it in with the wedding theme. I topped each cake with raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries and the jewel-like Japanese wine berries from my guest's garden. Finally, I used fresh roses to decorate the top tier. Again we called upon friends and neighbors for their fridge space, as the cakes needed to be kept cool overnight, and apart from a great mountain of washing up - which was mostly done by my dutiful bridesmaid - the mission was accomplished!

Even with buying all the equipment and the ingredients for the test runs, I only spent about £120 on my cake, as opposed to a minimum of £300 for the cheapest quote I had from a caterer. If you enjoy baking I cannot recommend this enough. Not only was I incredibly proud of the final result - most people at the wedding could not believe I had made the cake myself - but I also got exactly the cake I wanted, one that was enjoyed rather than tolerated by all my guests.

Here are the instructions if you want to try to make this cake, and bear in mind that you could replace white chocolate for milk or dark, and use dark or milk chocolate cigarillos if you don't like white chocolate. The red of the berries looks equally stunning with dark chocolate.

Equipment Needed:

Electric Mixer

Greaseproof Baking Parchment

2 x 8" Round Baking Tin with detachable base (for small top-tier cake)

2 x 10" Round Baking Tin with detachable base (for medium middle-tier cake)

2 x 12" Round Baking Tin with detachable base (for large base-tier cake)

Wire Cooling Rack

Mixing Bowls and Spatulas

This is the recipe for the small top tier cake, which is the best size for you to practice and find out it this is the right cake for you. For the middle tier, follow this same recipe but double the ingredients, and triple them for the base tier:

Small Cake

Ingredients (Cake) Quantity Self- Raising Flour 175g Golden Syrup 2 tablespoons (20 mills) Butter 175g Caster Sugar 115g Vanilla Extract 1 tablespoon Baking Powder 1 tablespoon Eggs 3 Large (Beaten) Milk Enough to give mixture a soft dropping consistency Salt Half a small teaspoon

Ingredients (Mousse) Quantity Double Cream 300 mills White Chocolate 100g

Ingredients (Filling) Quantity Drained Red Fruit (from tins or cooked) 125g Double Cream 300mls Rum 1 small tablespoons Reserved Fruit Syrup from Tinned or Cooked Fruit About ½ cup

Instructions ( Cake )

- Preheat Oven to 150c/302f - Cream the butter, sugar and syrup together until light and fluffy - Beat eggs with vanilla and some milk - Sift Flour, salt and baking powder together - Add flour mixture and egg mixture to butter mixture by turns - Add milk until cake mixture has soft dropping consistency - Grease two 6-inch baking tins and line the bottom with baking parchment - Put half of the mixture onto each tin - Bake for about 50 minutes and test by inserting a wooden skewer in the middle of the cake, If it comes out clean, the cake is ready, otherwise bake for longer until it does.

Instructions ( Mousse )

Gently warm up the double cream and chopped up white chocolate until it melts into a smooth mixture (very low heat)

Take the pan off the heat

Chill overnight - Beat until firm

Chill again until ready to spread over the cake

Instructions ( Filling )

- Whip Cream into stiff peaks and mix in the drained red fruits.

- Test cakes with a skewer to see if fully baked. - Turn onto cooling rack until completely cool - Make holes in the cakes with skewers and moisten with some syrup from the cooked or tinned fruit mixed the Rum (Kirsch or Brandy also work well). - Use filling to sandwich the two cakes together - Cover top and sides of cake with mousse - Decorate with fresh strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, etc. - Surround it with white chocolate curls if desired. Tie a gauze ribbon around it if so to kept the curls in place