Melissa's tribute to her Australian roots: a vertical layer cake riffing on the classic lamington. Chocolate sponge wrapped around raspberry mascarpone, coated in chocolate ganache, dipped in coconut feuilletine flakes and topped with small raspberry jellies. Melissa, a financial manager who grew up in Australia and moved to New York at 25, watched her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter Allegra build her own double-tier cakes at home. By the final minutes Melissa was self-critical: 'Everybody else's is so neat. Mine's very messy.'