Choccywoccydoodah

I had to pop into the Choccywoccydoodah cafe, even though all I drank was tea... Of course I had to. Just check out the menu, for cripes sake. M had a delicious peanut butter shake. After stealing a sip, I have to say it was exactly what was called for - a real thin, subtly flavoured shake which was really refreshing in the heat. I'm sure most people would have wanted something thicker and stronger, but we had to save ourselves for Jamie's Italian...

While we were in there, a couple were browsing through a catalouge of cakes,while the waiter hovered over them. This made me prick my ears up because I'd only just been talking about how I used to drool over Choccywoccydoodah wedding cakes a few years ago during my first round of wedding planning.

"This one would be about £800." the guy was saying.

I nearly inhaled the milkshake straw.

K, M and I exchanged glances filled with the agony of being too poor to spend £800 on a cake.

"Or something like this would set you back about two grand," the Choccywoccydoodah man was saying.

I didn't see exactly which cake this was, but I'm sure it was suitably amazing.

"It's not the materials that cost, it's the work that goes into it," he continued.

Blimey. For someone who takes nearly two months of sweating over a keyboard to earn that much cash, that was one painful sentence. I'm definitely in the wrong profession.

To check out the host of chocolatey delights we could have chosen from, follow this link to the cafe's menu.

Panna Cotta

I've loved panna cotta ever since my parents bought a delicious cranberry and orange one for Christmas from Marks and Spencer one year. Buying it sort of became a tradition, but for a long time that was the only flavour I'd tried. I'd always thought making it would be too hard, but after browsing through a few recipes, I realised it was pretty simple.

I wanted to make something with matcha for my recipe in NEO this month, after my holiday in France when I spotted a rice pudding recipe with it in in a cooking magazine. As you can see, the results, are pretty good! Getting the recipe right was pretty tricky, and I went through three batches before I got it right, ending up adding more gelatine and matcha powder by the end.

Also, check out my nifty new verrine in the top pic. It seems as though all of foodie France is totally obsessed with these cute little glasses, which you fill with sweet or savoury treats to show off to your guests. First of all, I came across recipe books for them in the Forum, then I found a shop with loads of them on sale. Obviously they were so cute I had to buy them, and once I did, everywhere I looked there were hundreds of the blimming things. Now I've got two sets of spoons specially sized for mini glasses (I should have bought the cute little forks too...) and two cookbooks dedicated to them... I wish I'd bought more, but that's just me...