A chocolate mud cake, topped with sheets of chocolate and adorned with lightly roasted flaked almonds.

And of course, a selection of gorgeous mini cakes, pastries and tarts from Chez Jean-Claude Patisserie.

This time we were particularly interested to see two new mini cakes we hadn’t tried before.

This was the mini banana cake, which was perhaps a little more walnutty in flavour than banana, but still very nice. On top of the icing was a slice of strawberry, banana, a piece of mango (I think!) and some passionfruit pulp – that passionfruit smelled absolutely wonderful. It almost made me wish the cake was a passionfruit cake! Do people make those? I know you can get passionfruit cheese cakes, but I’ve never eaten a passionfruit cake-cake. Hmmm, looking carefully at the photo, is that a hair or a fine thread I see? (Not that it matters now – and I don’t think it mattered then, either!)

This was the mini carrot cake, topped with cream cheese icing and real carrot strands – proclaimed by J to be “awesome”. I’ve never been a fan of carrot cake. Do you guys like carrot cake? What’s your favourite (or least favourite) cake?

The chocolate mud cake was good and muddy. The sheets of chocolate on top just begged to be picked at and nibbled on.

The lemon curd tarts disappeared very quickly.

The berry tarts were just as they always are – appealingly shiny, with tangy berries and sweet vanilla custard in a pastry shell that was painted on the inside with chocolate.

But for me, the best part of the feasting was this plate of Italian moon biscuits (that’s what we call them; I’m not sure what their proper name is) which L and her mum made for the occasion. They have the most gorgeous smell of citrus. I have this ritual where I breathe in that beautiful smell before biting into a biscuit, always trying not to snort up some of the icing sugar in the process but failing miserably! I often end up with an icing sugar-tipped nose. The biscuits are sweet, nutty and melt-in-the-mouth and it’s always excruciatingly difficult to stop at just one or two. Knowing L and her mum have taken the trouble to make all of these biscuits makes them extra special.