I need to get a few things off my chest about 3rd babies. It won’t take long.

First up, I wish everyone (well, it seems like everyone) would stop saying ‘Oh I do hope you have a girl’. They usually accompany this comment with a cock of their head to the side and a meaningful eyeball to eyeball narrowing of the eyes with a smile of impending commiseration. Comments like this bring out the irrational, hormonal pregnant woman in me. I find myself rebuffing their comments politely, yet angrily, through gritted teeth, staring wildly. If I had the balls I’d just be honest and say I find this obsession with the pink gender offensive. But I have no balls. I barely have a pelvic floor.

My other issue is with other mothers of three. Not all of them. But there’s a certain breed who enjoy telling tales of woe to those of us about to embark on the magic number family score. They tell of life never being the same again, nobody wanting to baby sit for you, the poor middle child becoming some kind of dead cert for teenage therapy, husbands miserable as their wives have so little time to service their needs…. and that’s an abridged version.

Do me a favour! I’ve already got two kids, it’s not like I’m skipping down to Soho every night to down trendy cocktails in jam jars and dancing the night away outside pop up bars. (Of course their predictions could all well be true, but really, is it helpful? I haven’t told my friends about to have their first baby that for the next year they’ll live in a hell hole state of domestic sluttery and wail to anyone who might listen, lamenting why they thought a baby might be life enhancing when all they want to do is sleep and drown in wine. I haven’t. Honestly.)

Right now that’s all off my chest here’s an easy recipe that I reckon even mothers of three, with their lack of time, general misery and poor pelvic floor might be able to knock up. These truffles are that easy.

One year ago: Simple chocolate ganache tart and Meringue roses and Flat vanilla cupcakes

Two years ago: Razzamatazz ribs and Banana and custard cupcakes and After Eight cupcakes

Three years ago: Banana and custard melts

Makes 25 ish

Ingredients:

• 1 x 396g tin condensed milk
• 4 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 45g butter
• 130g chocolate sprinkles for decoration

Pour the condensed milk into a large saucepan, stir in the cocoa powder and the salt. Heat on the hob over a low heat, stirring continuously. Be careful not to boil and burn the milk! After 10 – 15 minutes the mixture will become very thick and shiny and start to come away from the bottom of the saucepan. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter.

Chill in the fridge for an hour. Drop teaspoons of the mixture, one at a time, into a bowl containing the sprinkles. Push about gently to cover then roll between the palms of your hands into a ball. Chill and serve straight from the fridge.

(NB, for those who like this kind of info, these were named after a famous 1940’s Brigadier General named Eduardo Gomes, who loved chocolate. Store in the fridge.)