Crumbs to Crunch

Hurtling through the air on a zip wire 660m in the air, trekking through a sweltering rainforest and settling for the night in an old ship container . I felt like a proper adventurer, actually I was beginning to believe that I was the female Indiana Jones...in England. Preparing for the Sky Wire England is not known for its rainforests so this adventure unfurled in the Eden Project in Cornwall. It is an absolutely fascinating place and a great one to seek adventure on your home turf. I hopped from one world to the next in the space of a couple of metres. I started off in the classic British herb garden, then found myself surrounded by lemons in the Mediterranean biome and finally I entered the tropical biome.  The herb garden and the lemon trees seemed fairly familiar but the jungle was so exciting with new sights, smells and sounds. Dwarfed by majestic trees, crawled on by ants and splashed by waterfalls, each turn of ...

Rich, smooth and heavenly... These are the words that come to mind when sipping hot chocolate from a dainty tea cup at Angelina . This Parisian institution, located by the Louvre, is world famous for this liquid gold. I had some adorable mini pains aux raisins too.   Their signature chocolat chaud à l’ancienne dit “l’Africain” is a whopping €8.20 per pot! Do not despair if you are a tea room lover on a budget like me! You can bring a friend along and share a pot of hot chocolate. It's so rich that a teacup full is enough per person and at €4.10 each, the price tag is bearable. While sipping this gift from the gods, I soaked up the luxurious atmosphere and admired the classic French interior. Drinking this hot chocolate is definitely a special occasion so if you fancy treating yourself or a friend, Angelina is a wonderful spot.

I recently rediscovered how much I love drawing with crayons. You might be wondering how are crayons related to cake. Well, while I was waiting for my Chocolat Gourmand (more on that later), the owner of Crêperie Le St Glinglin slammed a pot of crayons down on the paper tablecloth. He said very seriously "No joke!" and waited for me to start drawing. I must say that I have absolutely no idea why he insisted that I do some colouring as none of the other customers were given crayons. However,  I gladly picked up my first crayon in years and started drawing. I found that it was very relaxing and wondered why people stop stop using crayons past the age of six. When my Chocolat Gourmand arrived it was magnificent. My hot chocolate was placed on a chopping board accompanied by lots of mini desserts: Crème brûlée ice cream A salted caramel and apple muffin A brownie Melted Chocolate and banana A Canelé (a mini sponge from Bordeaux) This marvellous ...

We may have found a contender to rival the glorious hot chocolate from  A chacun sa tasse  in Lyon but this time it's in Dublin. Butlers  is a chocolate café (the best kind of café in our opinion) that offers a wide selection of chocolates as well as hot chocolates. As soon as we walked through those shiny doors, we were already salivating at the sweet aroma that hit us. We were met with a chocolate dilemma: what should we try when everything smells so good? Should we buy a hot chocolate or try some of the little chocolates? In the end we opted for a silky praline hot chocolate, the wonderfully spicy chilli flavour and the cookie flavour where they actually crumble oreos into your drink. The variety of hot chocolates was divine but the best part was choosing a chocolate to go with your drink. That's right, chocolate with a hot chocolate - the best of both worlds! Some may say that it's too rich but we weren't complaining. We had entered chocolate heaven.

What do you do when you're gasping for a cup of tea on a hot summer's day? - Grab an ice tea for a refreshing tea fix. I found myself in such a situation on a boiling day in London where I was lucky enough to sip from a cup of home made ice tea at Camellia's Tea House. This tea room is located just off Carnaby Street in Kingly Court which provides a perfect tea break during a day out shopping. I enjoyed my ice tea with a slice of apple tart - a delightfully fruity combination.  The menu at Camellia's Tea House has pages and pages dedicated to tea so I will be sure to return on a cold winter's day to discover the perfect cuppa to warm me up! http://www.camelliasteahouse.com/

I'm crazy about blackberries at the moment. As they are so abundant I made an  Upside-down blackberry cake  in my previous post. I have developed my blackberry obsession to smoothies and ice lollies now. They are both so refreshing in the hot weather and are so easy to make. To make the smoothie and ice lollies you will need: 1 banana 2 cups of blackberries 400 ml orange juice Put all of the ingredients in a blender and pour into a glass if you want a smoothie. If you fancy some ice lollies, pour the smoothis into an ice lolly mold and freeze over night for some fun purple ice lollies.

As summer comes into full swing, we sometimes find ourselves looking around for a cooling alternative to a cup of tea. The best substitute that we have found is granita. The granita at BamBar, Taormina Originally from Italy, granita is reminiscent of a posh 90s slush puppy. In its most basic form, a street pedlar wheels around a trolley of crushed ice and pours lemon syrup on top. Delicious, refreshing, easy and cheap! On the opposite end if the scale, you have the BamBar granita of Taormina, Sicily. Made with fruit fresh from this morning's market, this local institution draws in diverse celebrities from Italian pop star Zucchero to Antonio Banderas (according to the pictures on the walls). But our latest find was Haden in Pavia. All the fresh fruit is laid out for you to decide on your flavour, Then it is quickly blended up with ice and syrup for instant summer refreshment. For the same experience slightly closer to home, we recommend the College H...

I'm going to make a controversial statement now: I think I might have found the best hot chocolate in the world.  I originally stumbled across À Chacun sa Tasse whilst wandering round Lyon during the Fête des Lumières- the annual light festival. It was about midnight in December, it was freezing cold and we had been walking about in a crush of people for about 4 hours. I needed a hot chocolate pick-me-up! As soon as I walked into the café, I knew that I had struck gold. It's painted warm colours and has a cool decor that makes it feel cosy. I particularly like how the glass tables are filled with different types of loose leaf tea.  The menu proved to be another success. There were pages upon pages of tea- always a good sign! And then I found it: a whole page dedicated to hot chocolate. There were so many fantastic flavours, including ginger, hazelnut, gingerbread, caramel, Inca (spicy)... I got myself a ginger hot chocolate and was not disappointed. The ...