A fortnight ago, our neighbour came round with a tub of Herman. Herman is the starter for a Friendship Cake – you feed him and look after him according to the instructions (which arrive with Herman) and he grows. After 10 days or so you split Herman into quarters, keep one, pass two on and make one into Herman cake.
(I don’t have the recipe for the starter, only the instructions for how to keep it alive, but there’s one here along with different Herman recipes).
The recipe we have for Herman cake involves dried fruit and cinnamon, and we used 3 eggs from our chickens. Although we own a cake tin, I’d never used it, and Herman was the first proper cake I’ve made (I have made cupcakes) so I wasn’t entirely sure how he would turn out.
As it happens, Herman is lovely. Just the right amount of crumbly, with a nice crispy crust. Not too sweet, and very tasty. I don’t even like fruit cake, but Herman is very tasty. We had the ceremonial cake cutting live on air, but you can listen to the recording if you missed it :)
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