This post was written over a year ago and then forgotten – but here it finally is.

Dessert is a course I rarely reach.

I find it very hard to ignore starters, and this inevitably means that by the time the dessert menu comes, I am full. Sometimes I have two starters and no main, or if it is a small plates place I rein it in, but I often get to the end of the meal and know that I just can’t fit anything else in.

For a while, I’d been wanting to do a “dessert day”, where I roamed around London and slowly ate a selection of cakes, pastries, ice-cream and other sweet treats. I hesitated wondering how many actual portions I could stomach in a trip, but roped H in so we could split items and that way try more.

The experience was not without some hitches. Off-peak train times only allowed for 5 hours in London, and while that sounds like a lot, it took nearly an hour to travel between the first few places, which led to a stressed Soho grab-and-go at the end. We also had to skip Bubblewrap Waffle due to a massive queue (too much hype at the moment!).

The places we DID make:

Stop 1: Lanka – Yuzu Mousse. I had been hoping for an eclair to start the day, but alas they were chouxless. H and I settled on a piece of Yuzu Mousse, which we ate in. It is a lovely place, and the cake was a nice bright citrus starter.

Stop 2: Ruby Violet – Apricot and Sour Cream; Banana and Liquorice; Masala Chai ice-creams. The first was for me (pictured right), then H and I semi-shared the others (I am not a liquorice fan). The Apricot was a bit subtle for me, but good, and I loved the Masala Chai. The Banana and Liquorice was very intense, with a good banana flavour, but too much of the lurking liquorice for me to really enjoy it.

Stop 3: Kova Patisserie – Chocolate Mille Crepe. I once tried making a mille crepe cake. It turned into a gungy mess, with the weight of pancakes pressing the filling inexorably out the sides. This, however, was a beautiful example. The interspersed pancakes almost melted into the filling, so it tasted like a lovely light mousse.

Stop 4: Cutter & Squidge – Raspberry S’More Biskie. I had heard about Biskies when this place first opened, but had never actually tried one. It is a pair of very soft cookies, sandwiched with (in this case) toasted marshmallow, raspberry filling and raspberry jam. The jam had a great zing, but the mallow and filling kinda merged into a creamy mass. I would definitely like to try some other flavours!

Stop 5: Bageriet – Princess Cake. I first saw Princess Cake on the Great British Bake-Off. Cream, custard, jam, sponge – all sounds great, except for the marzipan. And it was great. Almost trifle without the jelly/sogginess.

That was it for Dessert Day 1, but I’m hoping another will follow some time soon.