babies and bribery - this one's for you, Dawn!

It's my 200th post today and what better way to celebrate than to show some appreciation of one of my very favourite bloggers. The very lovely Dawn at Spontaneous Clapping.

I remember reading Dawn's first blog post - a photo of an Oreo floating in milk. Breakfast. Yep, this is my kind of girl! (Although I admit I was a lurker for a while before commenting!)

She is a great writer, taker of lovely photos, hilariously honest and vibrantly living as a survivor of breast cancer. She's also obsessed with food.

It's been extremely exciting to read along with her as she got ready for her incredibly beautiful wedding last December. Her honeymoon pictures of her travels and meals in New Zealand filled me with envy. HOW exciting then when she announced her pregnancy!!!

Peanut is due next month and this is one of many posts acting as a blog-shower: celebrating, gushing and generally brimming with excitement about this fabulous woman and the amazing next stage of her life. Click on the button at the top to read the other posts - believe me, you'll love Dawn utterly and completely once you've finished reading!

Well Dawn - I'm rather new to baby showers! I guess that once the drinks are flowing, cake is eaten and ridiculous games are played the same thing happens that occurs around the world when mothers get together... scary birth stories and heartfelt parenting advice!!!

I'm not going to give you either! Every birth is different, so my experience doesn't really matter and as far as parenting goes, I've worked out that everyone does it differently and that basically, what works for you and keeps you sane is generally the best bet! Plus, you don't need advice from a girl with a life as calamitous as mine!

But here is my one golden tip for having babies: BRIBERY.

When labour began with Jemima, I strapped on my TENS machine and began to bake. My theory was that if I took cookies for the midwives they would simply have to be lovely to me and treat me like a princess. Plus it was a good distraction while I waiting for things to get going!

It worked a treat! I handed over the cookies with my medical notes and instantly won a ward-full of new friends!

I know you love to bake and I know that even with your miserable gestational diabetes you have enjoyed baking for others. So in true Dawn style, here is the recipe for bribery cookies. Oh and it helps that these are the most delicious cookies you will ever taste. Just the right amount of crispiness around the edges with a chewy, meltingly delicious middle. In fact, these are the perfect bribery for any occasion!

Here's what you need (I even Americanified the measurements!):

Bribery Cookies
1 and a half sticks butter or spread (I use Clover)
1 and half cups caster sugar
1 cup soft brown sugar
1 egg
2 and a half cups self raising flour
A big bar of chocolate - ordinary milk chocolate. I use a 200g bar. You can also add any flavouring you like - my very favourite is white chocolate and dried sour cherries.

Oh, and of course - you need a cup of tea too. Important. Preheat your oven to 350. Or 180 if you're from the UK.

Mix the butter and both types of sugar until smooth. Then add the egg and mix again. It should look something like this:

Add the flour and mix again. It will be a very stiff dough.

At this point you will be ready to drink some of your tea. What's baking without a cuppa?

Chop your chocolate and stir it in. It's quite hard to get all the chocolate incorporated because of the stiffness of the dough, but don't worry - you can either eat the bits that didn't make it or squodge any unmixed chocolate into the cookies once you've spooned them onto baking trays.

You want dessert spoonfuls of dough on your baking sheets. Nicely space them. This recipe makes about 34 cookies. Enough for many midwives and definitely enough to warrant them sending you home with your own tank of gas and air.

At this point while baking I looked up and giggled, comparing my kitchen with the picture of Lemonade makin' mama's pristine kitchen. Tidying up is pretty much the same as moving stuff around in my world.

Dawn, this is the future of your baking! A little sweet boy asking to taste what's in the bowl everytime you make anything!!

Put the cookies in the oven for 10-12 minutes. In my fan-oven 11 mins is perfect. The key to knowing when they are done is this:

If they are a bit puffy still - great. Bash the tray on your worktop and if the cookies sink they are done to perfection. If they don't sink at all put them back in for 1 minute. If they're already dark brown and flat... um, start again?!

These will break your heart when you eat them straightaway with vanilla ice cream! They are delicious warm, cool, cold... actually they're just amazing whenever! I sent Dave a text to tell him I'd made cookies. His text response?: "I love you"!!

While the cookies were cooking, a little fluff-head woke up! I'm pretty sure the last time I made these cookies she was on her way and we hadn't yet met.

Two things, Dawn: Bribery works. It's all worth it!

So much love to you and B. So glad you liked the little gift. We cannot wait to see your beautiful boy!