Herman The German Friendship Cake

A few months ago I was given a pile of goo that smelt of beer with a list of instructions to look after it for 9 days, out on my worktop, covered with a towel. Eventually I would be splitting it into 4, giving out 3 and keeping one to bake. I decided I should look it up and see what it was in case I was going to poison my family.

This is the website I found

http://www.hermanthegermanfriendshipcake.com/

So I did as instructed

Day 1: put him in a big bowl and stir

Day 2: Stir well

Day 3: Stir well

Day 4: HERMAN IS HUNGRY
Add 1 cup plain flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk (I know, milk. Your thinking what I thought. Milk, hanging around on your work top, going gross for 10 days, but the yeast kind of digests it. Unless it starts to smell putrid it's fine)

Day 5: Stir well

Day 6: Stir well

Day 7: Stir well

Day 8: Stir well

Day 9:  HERMAN IS HUNGRY
Add 1 cup plain flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk

Once he starts to bubble again, divide the Herman into 4. Giving 3 away and keeping one

On day 10 I made the cake. Just the basic cake that comes with the instructions:

INGREDIENTS

1 cup sugar
2 cups plain flour
2/3 cup cooking oil (I used vegetable)
2 eggs
2 cooking apples cut into chunks
1cup rasins
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda

METHOD

Put everything in with your Herman and mix

Line an 8" round cake tin

Put the mix into the tin

Cover with foil and bake at 170oC for 1.5 hours. Cooking time varies wildly. The instructions say 45 minutes but it was no where near done so I kept cooking it until a skewer came out clean.

But it was amazing!! By far one of the best cakes I have ever made. So soft. So moist.

I gave out my 3 remaining Hermans and asked one of of them if I could have one back to experiment with.

So on day 10 I got one back.

I did the instructions again but instead of giving them out I decided to see if the 3 Hermas would freeze. It says everywhere 'DO NOT PUT IN THE FRIDGE' but I found mixed results on freezing when I searched.

So.. Can you freeze your Herman?

The answer is YES!! Yesterday I took one of the Hermans out the freezer and once he was defrosted he started bubbling away. He was looking a little sad so I would defiantly recommend that you start that as day 4 and feed him or day 10 and cook him. I treated it as day 10 (as I still have 2 more in the freezer)

So the latest cake is


INGREDIENTS

1 cup sugar
2 cups plain flour
2/3 cup cooking oil (I used vegetable)
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda
1 cup strawberries cut into quarters
1cup blue berries
125g (just over a cup) of white chocolate chunks


METHOD

Put everything in with your Herman and mix except the strawberries

Toss the strawberries in a little flour and add them just before you put the cake mix into the tin or the Herman will go slimy and pink

Line an 8" round cake tin

Put the mix into the tin

Cover with foil and bake at 170oC for 1.5 hours.



Cherry and almond muffins



1 cup sugar
1 cup plain flour
1 cup powdered almonds
2/3 cup cooking oil (I used vegetable)
2 eggs
2 tsp almond essence
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda
1 cup glacé cherries



STAY TUNED FOR MORE HERMAN ADVENTURES AND PICTURES

Easy Easter nests

I discovered these last year and I can't remember where so I can't give credit to any one.

Well I decided to make these with my 3 year old as it's the Easter holidays and he's driving me crazy. They are fun and simple for kids to get involved in. This makes about 24

INGREDIENTS

300g milk chocolate
8 full size Shredded Wheat
a little icing (any is fine, butter cream is best. Or more melted chocolate)
Mini eggs

METHOD

Line a fairy cake tin with cake cases

Melt the chocolate (I prefer to do this in a bain marie as I always burn it in the microwave)

When the chocolate is melted crunch up the Shredded Wheat and mix it in with the chocolate

Spoon the mix into the cake cases and press a hollow into the middle

Cool in the fridge (takes about half an hour)

Put a little icng/chocolate into the middle on each nest and add 3 mini eggs

Done :-) Easy and perfect for Easter!

Peppermint creams

This is based on this recipie. I actually found it really easy. And they taste just as good as shop bought. The only change I made was to spray them gold with Dr.Oetker gold shimmer spray to make them as a St. Patrics day themed gift.

INGREDIENTS

One large egg white
12oz icing sugar
1 teaspoon peppermint extract

METHOD

Line a flay tray with grease proof paper

Separate the egg.

Whisk the egg white until it is fluffy, not stiff

Add the peppermint extract

Gradually stir in the icing sugar. Eventually it will become too stiff to do this with a spoon so you will have to use you hands. It will become a ball of dough. You can at this point add colour to it if you like

Then break off balls around 2cm diameter and roll them in your hand.

Put them on the grease proof paper and push them down flat. You can do this with your hands but I used a fork. You may need to dip the fork in icing sugar to stop it sticking.

Leave them in the fridge for 24 hours to set and your done

I sprayed mine with the gold spray to make them into leprechaun coins

Chocolate Orange Fudge

This is really easy to make, and tastes just great. The only down side is you have to keep it in the fridge because it's a bit soft, but it's only a small sacrifice!

INGREDIENTS

Zest of 1 orange
380g milk chocolate
1 tin (397g) condensed milk

METHOD

Line and grease an 8" square cake tin

Melt the chocolate. I used the pan over simmering water method as I always burn it in a microwave

Once it is fully melted stir in the orange zest and condensed milk. It goes thick almost instantly so you have to stir vigorously.

Pour the warm fudge into the prepared cake tin and leave to cool for at least 2 hours. The longer you leave it the easier it is to cut (please ignore the onion, that was for the dinner I was just going to make)

Remove from the tin and cut into squares-enjoy!!

Valentines spiral cookies

I was a bit sceptical on how these would turn out as I found various recipes but the method was always the same.  Anyway, after cooking the first batch a little too long I watched the second ones like a hawk and they turned out perfect. Although I could have done with putting more sprinkles on. It makes around 24

The ingredients can be fiddled around with to be different flavours/colours/sprinkles but the method would always be the same

INGREDIENTS

2 cups self raising flour + 1 table spoon
1/2 tea spoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup (4oz) sugar
1 egg (lightly beaten)
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon strawberry essence
red food colouring (I used my gel food colour)
sprinkles ( used pink glitter)

METHOD

(I don't know if this is right as I couldn't find a good recipe but it's what I did and it worked just fine)

Put the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a bowl. Mix in the butter (it will look like bread crumbs)

Add the egg and mix

Add the milk and combine with your hands into a dough

Divide the dough into two

Put one to one side and with the other mix in the food colouring, strawberry essence and 1 tablespoon of extra flour (this takes a while to make it change colour)

Then between 2 sheets of lightly floured greaseproof paper roll out one colour of dough to as close to a rectangle as you can around 1/2 cm thick

So the same with the other dough trying to make it the same size/shape as the other.

Put them both flat in the fridge for at least 2 hours

Take them out take the paper off one side of the red and paint it with water. Then try (it's not easy) to put the other dough on top

Then trim off the edges and roll it up into a tight spiral.

Then roll the dough into your chosen sprinkles (again, this isn't easy because it's quite long) and wrap it tightly in cling film and put it in the fridge for another 2 hours (I left mine over night)

Then pre heat oven to 180oC and prepare your baking trays with greaseproof paper 

Cut the log into 1 finger width (about 1cm) slices and place on the baking try. They spread to about 1/2 the size again so leave a gap

All the recipes I found said cook for 10 minutes but this browned them too much so the second batch I watched like a hawk and they cook perfectly (about 7 minutes)

Leave to cool and enjoy!

These are the ones that I cooked for 10 minutes. Also the spiral wasn't very tight at that end so as you can see they curled up a bit funny

Oh, and with all the left over cookie dough, I smushed them together cut out another 8 cookies. Not pretty like the others but still yummy

Gingerbread cupcakes

These were so easy and so yummy!! I'm definitely making these again

INGREDIENTS:

150g butter
150g soft brown sugar
3 eggs
150g self raising flour
1tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tbsp milk

METHOD:
Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy

gradually mix  the eggs into the creamed butter and sugar alternating with sieved flour (add the spices to the flour as you sieve) until everything is combined

Use an ice cream scoop to put a dollop of mix into prepared cupcake cases (made about 20)

Cook at 180oC for about 15-20 minuets or until a cocktail stick inserted into the middle comes out clean

ICING:
200g butter
50g soft brown sugar
2tbsp milk
200g icing sugar

METHOD:

Melt the sugar and 50g of the butter in a pan over a low heat.

Add the milk, stir and leave to cool

Mix together the rest of the butter and the icing sugar

When the toffee source is at room temperature pour it into the butter cream and mix well

Pipe onto the cake

YUM!!

Halloween cake

At the play group me and my boys go to on a Wednesday we are having a Halloween party. I have been put in charge of sandwiches. So naturally I've made a cake.

I decided to do a simple Madeira cake and make it two spooky colours

RECIPE:
(This is enough for an 8" round cake tin)

12oz self raising flour
10oz caster sugar
10oz butter
5eggs
3 tablespoons milk

METHOD:

Sift flour into a large bowl

Add all the other ingredients

Mix until everything is combined (yes it's that easy)

Then divide the mix into two bowls and add the colours you want to the mixture (I used orange and green as the mix is quite yellow and obviously orange and green are already half yellow so they wouldn't look funny colours)

Mix well

Line your cake tin

Pour the mix's into the cake tin (you can't see on the picture but the orange is at the bottom) It is quite a thick mix so once it is in the tin you have to spread it with a spatula to make it flat and go all the way to the edge.

Then bake for 1 1/2 hours on 150oC or until a skewers inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean

Leave to cool in the tin for 15 minuets then turn out onto a cooling rack. (I forgot to take a photo of what it looked like when it came out the oven, but there wasn't much to see as it was just brown-cake coloured)

Once cool it's ready to decorate how you like

I had a few comments on how I made the spider...basically, think the fondant is play dough, and think your 4!! It's that easy!! Oh, and stick all the bits together with a bit of water

Inside, not as bright as the rainbow cake, I think I made the right decision making it green and orange!