Calories don't count when you're only reading

Being in Germany is not good for either of our figures. Both my Hero and I love the food and drink and the last two weeks have offered an embarrassment of riches, not only in the schnitzel, haxen and flammkuchen department but with a few sweet things as well.

I mean, who could resist freshly made Kaiserschmarrn? Not me. Especially when it's served with a scoop of ice cream as well as the traditional stewed plums.

A new discovery for me this time was Streuselschnecke, particularly those filled with vanilla custard. Oh!

In Dresden, there's always Baumkuchen and though I don't think it originates in the city, we seem to come across it there more readily than anywhere else.

On this trip, we were introduced to another new discovery, by our friend Ellis, who'd remembered Butterkuchen from his childhood. Another yummy addition to our list of favourites.

On the whole then, we are more than happy to eat simple, traditional fare and have no need for fine dining. But on our first night in Berlin, we'd booked a table at Käfer and the dishes there were rather smarter than the average bear usually chooses. Above is my dessert, Chocolate and Herbs, described as "lemon balm and thyme sorbet / hazelnut / chocolate cream / redvein dock / lime basil ice cream" The "stones" were filled with the lemon balm sorbet and lime ice cream and the chocolate cream was placed in small scoops underneath. The "frilly bits" were a kind of light sponge and didn't add much to the flavour, but looked pretty! The clever bit was the sweet pesto blobs which were there in and amongst it all....Delicious!!

The others all chose Caramel and Sallow Thorn; "elstar apple / caramelised chocolate / bronze fennel / cream of tonka beans" and declared it as the best thing they'd tasted! So many new flavours and who'd have thought of using fresh herbs in desserts like that? Something to investigate further, I think!