New House!!

It's official we have finally found a new house to live in!! 

The new place is in Henderson, Auckland, which means we are becoming Westies. 

Bring on the 20th June when we can move.

Life Update: Missing In Action

I know I have been missing in action for a few months with only one brief recipe post since February this year (slack I know!), but there is a reason.

In January we found out that we are expecting our first child! This was great news, a little unexpected but still great news. I had a pretty easy pregnancy up until about the end of April. Up until this point I had had zero morning sickness and very little nausea. However at the end of April I started suffering from chronic headaches that would increase in intensity as they went on and would not go away. I was diagnosed with Inter-cranial Hypertension, which in basic terms is an increased fluid buildup and pressure within the brain and spine. To treat this I have had to undergo a Lumbar Puncture to reduce the fluid build up and also to measure the pressure itself. This was not as straight forward as it sounds, the whole procedure which is meant to take 30mins instead took 2 hours and instead of 1 needle they used 4 needles (they kept hitting vertebrae which in turn would bend their needles). Following the lumbar puncture I then suffered from a low pressure headache (previously I was suffering from a high pressure headache) which resulted in my being on strict flat bed rest in hospital for 5 days.

Combine all of this with the fact that at the beginning of April one of our administrators took extended leave due to having to undergo a back operation which meant that my hours increased from 30 to 40+ hours a week I was very very busy with just work and trying to manage my headaches.

Then during an obstetrician appointment (my midwife referred me due to the inter-cranial hypertension) they discovered that I am also suffering from Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction (SPD) just to add to the misery complications.

To top it all off our landlord then told us that she would not be renewing our fixed term and we would need to find somewhere new to live, which is proving particularly hard in the current Auckland rental market.

So all of these things piled on top of each other, means I have had almost zero energy to focus on anything else except making it through my working week and growing a healthy baby.

Roasting Dish Chocolate Cake

This weekend just been we were invited to a close friend's 30th Birthday party. It was a 'bring a plate' occasion.

For those of you who are not from New Zealand or don't know kiwi slang, 'bring a plate' means to bring a dish to be shared with everyone for a meal.

I decided to make a giant chocolate cake cooked in a roasting dish as it needed to feed large numbers.

I wanted to use a recipe that was quick, basic, easy and wouldn't take long to make from start to finish.

After a quick google, I came across this great recipe from the blog Bridget's Readings, Ramblings, Recipes and Randoms

Here is the recipe I used for those that are interested. The original can be found here.
I did change up the original recipe mainly to fit what was in my cupboard but also cause I felt like it.

Mix together in a big bowl:

3 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
3/4 cup cocoa
1 1/2 cups sugar

Mix together in a little bowl:

1/4 cup oil
2 eggs
1 cup milk
2 tsp Vanilla Essence

Pour the wet into the dry ingredients and mix, then add 1 cup boiling water and mix again. Don’t be freaked out when it looks like a sloppy mess, it’ll come right.

Bake at about 160c until it’s done. 

To check if it was done I used a wooden skewer to poke the cake until the skewer came out dry (no uncooked batter on it). 

I cooled the cake directly in the roasting dish (this took about an hour or so) so that I could then transport the cake to the party easily.  

To finish it off, I iced it with a quick chocolate icing recipe of cocoa powder, icing sugar and hot water. I didn't use any specific measurements for this, just eyeballed it until I had the consistency I wanted. 

I forgot to take a picture of the cake all iced, but here is one after it came out out of oven. 

Note: I doubled the above recipe to make the cake in the picture above.