"You get your diploma, just!"

We left San Gimignano with a glove box full of baking from the B&B host and headed toward Florence. We went straight to the castle that we were staying at so that we could leave the car there and take the bus in to the city. The castle was pretty cool, just a little one but very proper. We were welcomed by the guardian of the caste, Dante, the Spanish pointer.

We went in to the city for a wonder before our cooking class at 2.30pm where we learnt to make pizza and gelato. It just so happened that no one else booked the same one so it was a private class. The chef had spent a year flatting with a kiwi in London and enquired if we were JAFAs! He was really nice and a great teacher, although you just can't teach some people *cough-nick-cough*. I think my years of making pancakes with Dad paid off in this class (I made a kick-ass well for the water! Good wells are important in pancakes and pizza bases.). Nick needed a little bit of help but David helped us both a bit, I think he was quite particular about making sure that people have a pizza to eat at the end of the class! The gelato making was really basic, Nick spent about 10 minutes whisking milk, cream and cocoa and then the mixture gets put into a special machine to cool. Bit of a have really, the machine is really expensive ($1,000s) and it would be extremely labour and time intensive to do by hand. Do I don't think anyone will be enjoying homemade gelato anytime soon! It did taste delicious though, as did our pizzas and we both got our 'diplomas' at the end of the class.Read more