so long, Hermann my friend,and thanks for all the cake

I’ve been living in retroville for the past couple of weeks as it seems that German Friendship Cake (aka Hermann Cake) is doing the rounds again – perhaps he never went away?

Back in the eighties when we had hungry daughters in the house I was given my first Hermann starter – a type of sweet sourdough, consisting of flour, sugar, milk and wild yeast. It makes a moist spicy cake with the optional addition of apples, raisins and nuts – very nice with a cup of tea or coffee, or even as a warm dessert with cream or ice cream. The starter comes with strange anthropomorphic instructions (“Hermann is hungry – feed him today”) and takes ten days before you bake your first cake. Before the cake is baked, however, the batter has to be divided so that you can pass it on to other bakers.

I seem to remember that I kept it going for a few months, passing on batches of starter to school-gate friends, until I got fed up of the cake tyranny – “Hermann is hungry!” and the family got fed up of always having the same cake. I haven’t got so far this time. For a start I couldn’t find many people to pass it on to. Daughter no. 1 declined the offer as she had recently killed one in her care and didn’t feel up to the responsibility! Daughter no. 2 accepted and we carefully transported a batch up to Stratford last Monday. (I hope they manage to keep it going as I love the prospect of it being passed round the RSC). Other than that, no takers as the friend who gave me my batch is a member of the same Knit and Natter group, so she had them all covered.

I could probably have put a bit more effort into finding people to pass it to, but we’re off on holiday on Monday so won’t be here to stir it every day. So this morning I have stirred up a huge batch of Hermann and made three cakes for the freezer. Should keep us going for a while.

christmas cake

I made a Christmas cake today. The house smells lovely.

I don’t have a special recipe that I use every year. I’m quite happy to try new ones from time to time. I also think that a bought cake is perfectly acceptable when life is busy.

For quite a few years I used a Delia Smith recipe, but always had to change the constitution of the dried fruit mixture. She specifies 450g currants, 175g sultanas and 175g raisins. Now I really like dried fruit, but currants always seem such unappealing, mean, pinched little things by comparison with juicy raisins and sultanas. I quite often go with a Good Housekeeping recipe. Needing to sell magazines, they generally have a slightly different recipe each year with names like “the ultimate Christmas cake”, or “our best ever Christmas cake”.

I’ve taken the GH route this year. This one is called their "easiest ever"! The fruit mixture includes prunes and stem ginger – no currants and no mixed peel!
Unusually the recipe involves boiling the fruit and melting the butter and sugar so that the mixture goes into the oven already warm and takes less cooking time.

I didn’t have any Amaretto liqueur, so used port and added half a teaspoon of almond extract when the mixture came off the heat.
It looks good so far!