Some classics

'Snack' is a strong contender for my least favourite word. I am not quite sure why. It's probably a spot to reminiscent of 'snake' with the aggressive touch of the shorter vowel. It's particularly irksome as a verb.

So I am not quite sure how to say we have been working on some traditional French snacks.

First, we made friands (also known as financiers, particularly when made in rectangular moulds) which are on the right in the photo. These are little cakes make with powdered almonds and, crucially, beurre noisette.

In the middle is perhaps the most famous of all French nibbles: the madeleine. The madeleine is particularly well known because it appears in Du côté de chez Swann, the first part of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu. The madeleine features as a trigger of involuntary memory.

We also prepared batter for cannelés bordelais. These are top notch nibbles which look like this. They are made from a rich vanilla and rum flavoured batter cooked in copper moulds like these. Cooked for a long time at a high temperature, the outside caramelizes and goes very dark, and crunchy. The inside remains moist and chewy. It's hard to find good ones even in French patisseries but a successful hunt is well worth it.

Finally, you can see a ruddy great fruitcake. I see these kinds of cake as rather an English thing (indeed, the French call it le cake) and dislike fruitcake even at home. Well, this specimen was deadly dry even just after baking. The kind of thing that would get stuck in granny's throat. Steer clear.

And we finished off the day with these little coconutty cakes called congolais which translates as Conoglese. They are, however, distinctly white as the chef pointed out. Just one of a selection of dubiously named French patisseries among which the brilliant tête de nègre. The pyramids are moulded by hand.

Au revoir, Berlin

We went to the zoo.

A baby pygmy hippo. Around the size of a Corgi.

Words cannot easily describe how enormous this proper hippo was. Bloody enormous.

These are the polar bears that had eaten a woman the day before our trip.

And on my way back to the airport, another good road sign:

I nearly missed my flight home - it was a considerably closer run affair than nearly missing my flight out. But these things rarely mean anything to others, so I shall spare the story.

Berlin III

Glorious weather on Easter Sunday.

Nice bit of breast feeding.

On a market stall along the river (where you might go for a shopping spree or a good pun). Zoom in on top left.

Just an ordinary German.

And another, in motion-video.

This is the theatre where The Producers is showing. Interesting to see the swastikas on the banners replaced with lovely rams' horns for the Berlin version.

And two views of the Brandenburg Gate.

Then we went to a cracking Art Nouveau swimming pool. It's the one pictured on the front page here, complete with ionic columns, mosaic and water spouting walruses. I was quite surprised on jumping in how low the visibility was, but my sister kept banging on about how clean she found it (compared to her Islington local). Then all of a sudden we were evacuated due to a poo discovery. Nice.

Berlin II

I imagine a holiday diary would be a good step worse than a cooking diary, so here are just a few choice snaps.

In among the sellotape and corkscrews, can you spot 'Billy Boy' fruity French letters?

Whopper of a donner:

Hard to resist popping this one in:

I nipped into the Berlin equivalent of Harrods to try and locate some swimming trunks. It turns out the Germans are rather worse on this front than the French. This company manufactures an extraordinary range of male thongs with the appropriate tag, "Not for Everybody".

Top notch, though, was this grocery section of the toy department: each product (including the bottles) made from turned wood.

Don't mention the war, just leave a ruddy great church in pieces to remind everyone.

Street hair.

I was toying with taking a photo of a poster for a band called 'Experimental Dental School'. I didn't. There was no doubt about this one, though:

Big bad Berlin

After finally being allowed out of my practical, I pegged up to the train station and just caught my train to Paris.

Half-way to Paris, the train stopped unexpectedly between stations, the doors opened and we stood stock still. For a long time. With no indication when we might set off again. I had cut things pretty fine for getting to the airport (to minimize the amount of school I would have to miss) and was pretty sure I was going to miss my flight.

Half an hour later, we suddenly got underway (the doors, quite remarkably, still open) and we pulled into St Lazare rather late.

Quite astonishingly, as we alighted, we were greeted by a dozen or so station staff clutching pre-paid envelopes for us to claim a refund, each one stuffed with a certificate of delay. Someone should tell Great Western.

Luckily I arrived in enough time, but it was a little too tight for pleasure.

As for pleasure, the first thing spotted outside the airport was a Wurst van. With a nice English tag-line. It's hard to make out but reads, "When things get Wurst, call: ..."

And then, once in town, there was the boutique selling nothing but Lindt bunnies.

Desperate for the loo, I shelled out a princely euro for the loo at the station. I find it obscene to pay 30p now at Victoria so was expecting great things. Well how's this for a station urinal? (An embarrassing photo to take.)

Having found my sister's new flat, I slipped out into the night to do some shopping. Found some chocolate bars.

St Honorés, Paris-Brests and a bell

Up nice and early to revise some classics. Here are the bases for the St Honorés. They are made from left over bits of puff pastry nicely rolled out. There's very rarely any wastage in patisserie. They're also thoroughly pricked to avoid too much rising in the oven.

Each one is crowned with a ring of choux pastry. The spiral in the large one and little dots in the minis will not be seen. Their volume means you don't have to put so much (expensive) cream in the finished item - or, as some prefer to say, they help prevent the feuilletage developing too much. There were also two trays of choux.

And here are the uncooked Paris-Brests. Just choux pastry rings. They will be glazed and covered with almonds before cooking. On the left you can clearly see the larger tyre (two concentric rings with a third on top) and the inner tube which will sit inside.

The whole canoodle cooked - except the large St Honoré which was sadly not present for the photo call.

Now, today was a day of great controversy that got me really wound up. I had arranged some time ago to go to Berlin to spend Easter with my sister. I had sought permission from the powers that be to leave 2hrs before the end of today's class to make it to Paris for my flight and had warned my chef twice.

Well, when I mentioned again this morning that I would be leaving early, the prof claimed he knew nothing about it and rang up the admin lady who called me out of the class and shouted at me in the corridor, claiming I had only asked to leave 30mins before the end of the lesson. (Big difference, apparently.) I've not been shouted at like that since I was about 11 (that's an even better story) and it really riled me - not least because I had gone to such lengths to follow the protocol.

Anyway, I finished up the chocolate bell I was making to take to said sister for said Easter weekend and scarpered.

If it's not entirely clear, this is a chocolate bell still in its mould. Looking at the inside.

Since I left before finishing my St Ho's, here are two snaps of other people's. A small:

And a large:

Babas and bites

I don't think you can get more kitsch in patisserie than a tropical baba.

We've also been making various nibbly-type petits-fours in catering quantities. I hit the jackpot with the sausage rolls. There were also mini pizzas, various tarty, quichey type things, olive baskets and so on. Here is the blast freezer fully stoked with the goodies and out of focus.