The life and times of Herman!

A week or so ago, I introduced Herman the German Cake of Friendship to feedahappylife.

To recap, Herman is a cake that takes seven days to make and grows bigger day-by-day.At certain points in Herman's life, he can be split and shared with friends for them to start from day one and grow him too (I hope you're following....think of it as an edible chain letter, or maybe a Cake Cult!).

I had never made the recipe before (mistake one?!) and decided I would try the concept out on three of my friends. Results are below!!

Helen's Herman....

Herman's golden colour looks quite inviting and belies the fact that he yeastily bubbled away for seven days and emitted a funny beer-like smell from the corner of the room. On adding his final ingredients on day seven, it became clear that the quantities were a little bit out (always test recipe first!!!), so I added an extra 250mls milk, and it worked well....

I was left with a moist cake, with a crunchy outing, tasting something like a banana cake without the bananas!

Sarah's Herman....

The ingredients issue also caused a problem for Sarah's Herman at the last stage, with a solid dough forming rather than a silky cake mix. To compensate for this, Sarah added an egg, resulting in a slightly drier version of Herman than mine, which I quite liked but she thought was horrible - clearly not the best use of seven days of her life let alone Herman's!

Kaye's Herman...

You'll note there is no picture of Herman here. This is either because Kaye forgot to take one or because she was slightly ashamed of the end result. Given she got confused about Herman's cake status and cooked him in a bread maker and then added olive oil instead of vegetable oil, I think it's probably the latter! Poor Herman!!!!

Chloe's Herman....

At last Herman has bloomed! Chloe has done little Herman justice with her beautiful icing.

So there you have it! The trials and tribulations of Herman!

I have learnt several things through this process:

1. I have lovely friends who humour my silly, foody ways!
2. Recipes should always be tested before sharing them with others
3. There are many, many cakes that taste nicer than Herman with considerably less effort!!

If you want to try your own Herman (!!), you can download the instructions and, now amended, recipe here

Helenxx