I Have a Herman

And what, exactly, is a Herman? Well, I hadn't heard of him either until a couple of weeks ago and when my friend told me about him, I had a feeling I'd be receiving a little pot of Herman soon, and so I did!

Herman is a German Friendship Cake based on a sourdough starter which you have to love for ten days before turning into a cake. So, on the first day, you transfer your little pot of starter (sugar, flour and milk...and presumably the first person added yeast too) to a large bowl and leave on the kitchen surface. You are reminded that if you put him in the fridge he'll die. You'll know this if he stops bubbling. Now, I have a knack of killing most indoor house plants, so was a little worried he might not last very long. However, I've successfully got to day 5, fed him with more flour, sugar and milk, and he's still bubbling away so I know he's breathing. Thank goodness for that.

The idea is that when I next feed him, I split the mixture into four, keep one and pass the other three to friends (who I'm sure will be over the moon to have a Herman to look after for ten days.) I then add the rest of the cake ingredients, including apple and cinnamon, and they begin the tending process until their little monster also grows into a cake!

To find out more about Hermans, look here.

lemon drizzle cake

Having looked for several Drizzle Cake recipes and not finding one I was happy with, I made my own very simple version: it's a basic cake mix, with a lemon syrup drizzled over the top.

Ingredients:

6oz s.r. flour
6oz butter
6oz sugar
3 eggs
lemon zest and juice
caster sugar

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, lemon zest, a little juice, then flour, making sure you only mix enough to incorporate the flour.
Pour into a cake tin and bake for about 30 minutes at 180 degrees c until it's spongy and light, and a skewer comes out clean.

During the last few minutes of cooking, make the drizzle:
Put the juice and two lemons some zest, and enough sugar to sweeten into a pan and melt until bubbly and hot.

When the cake comes out, stab several times with a fork, and, whilst still hot, pour over the drizzle. Let it soak into the top before eating!

Halloween Recipe: Toffee Apple Sponge Puddings

Toffee Apple Sponge Puddings

These little puds looked like the perfect after-dinner treat, and so easy too! As usual, I took the idea from Simon Rimmer's Something for the Weekend recipe and made up my own version. Again, though, (when will I learn that the recipe generally helps rather than hinders?) the toffee sauce went a bit grainy, probably because I used single cream as it was in the fridge, and because the sugar went clumpy: I think I'd melt the sugar with the butter to start, then add the cream and condensed milk. Simply combine equal quantities of soft brown sugar, double cream, condensed milk and butter. Heat til bubbly and thickly sticky.

For the cake mixture, I always make a very simple one that's so easy to remember. Equal quantities of butter, sugar and flour, half of that in eggs and another half in baking powder. So, for example, 4oz sugar, butter and flour, 2 eggs, 1tsp baking powder. Basically, mix it all together, I never bother creaming the butter and sugar first, but one tip I did learn was to just combine the flour at the end and mix as little as possible to prevent the gluten from stretching.

Basically, you make a toffee sauce, coat the softened chunks of apple in it (I chop mine and pop it in the microwave with a little sugar and water,) leaving some sauce to pour over the sponge at the end. Put a splodge of toffee covered apple in the bottom of a greased ramekin or dariole mould. Blob the cake mixture over the top and bake for between 10 and 20 mins. Tip out when cooked and pour over the sauce. It really was incredibly quick and easy, but absolutely delicious.