I’ve had the day off work today and I’ve been baking.
I love baking – I find it very cathartic, but since being pregnant I’ve had a fair few disasters in the kitchen that I can only attribute to my pregnancy brain… Ah pregnancy brain; one day you’re an intelligent female with the vocabulary that could rival anyone on Countdown… the next day *BAM!* you can barely string a sentence together – that’s if you can remember what you were talking about in the first place…
But hey, isn’t pregnancy fun?
My award winning brownies have come out dodgy more than once since Grape started growing in my belly, so I have entered into today’s baking with trepidation – checking and re-checking the recipe at least 10 times.
Earlier this week my Mutti bought me Jo Wheatley’s cook book: “A Passion for Baking”. I’ve been keeping an eye on Twitter comments since it was released to see whether it’s any good; all comments have been incredibly positive so asked her to pick me up a copy in Sainsburys (as it’s the only place you can buy it at the moment).
The first thing I have baked from the book is the Chocolate Mud Cake, as I’ve been wanting chocolate cake ever since Nick and I had a nostalgic conversation a few weeks ago about the Sara Lee chocolate cakes of our childhood. Whilst baking my mind always wanders to far off places, and today I started thinking about what I want to do/eat/drink after I’ve given birth to my beautiful, squirmy, awkward, little trouble monkey…so I have compiled a list (I love lists):
1. Eat cake batter. Maybe to the extent of preparing an entire bowl of the stuff just so I can eat it, with no intention of it entering the oven and making it to the status of full-blown baked cake.
2. Drink champagne/sparkling wine. Copious amounts. I have requested a bottle of this (plus one straw) whilst in labour. This will be my epidural – much more pleasurable and no needles!
3. Have a large G&T. Possibly with more gin than tonic.
4. Eat an entire pack of smoked salmon.
5. Buy a round of brie and freshly baked bread and gorge myself.
6. Same as above but with pâté.
7. Eggs Benedict. Eat. Smothered in hollandaise sauce. SMOTHERED!
8. Paint my toe nails. Although Nick has done an excellent job of this now I can’t reach, so may keep him on as my personal pedicurist.
9. Make mulled wine and be able to drink it.
10. Dance like a fool in front of my new born baby in the confidence that she will never remember the occasion.
11. Dress my newborn baby up in some form of Christmas outfit and take many MANY photos to embarrass her in front of boyfriends when she’s 16. (Nick reading over my shoulder: “16? Um…more like 21!”)
I realise most of these centre around eating and drinking, but being a foodie/wino when you’re pregnant is tough! Talking of which, here are a few pictures of my Chocolate Mud Pie for you all to salivate over…at least we can eat this! God help whoever publishes an article on chocolate cake being bad for pregnant ladies (because it will happen one day).
| Cake straight from oven – smelt amazing! |
| Iced in chocolate frosting |
| The whole cake! |
What are you most looking forward to eating/drinking/doing once you’ve given birth? Comment below or tweet me @theREALjeevesy.
I wish you all a fabulous weekend!
Until next time
Hannah
