Who the Heck is Herman?

Someone gave me the gift of Herman today. Herman is a friendship cake that you cannot buy but you can give away. "Herman grows slowly but surely because of special yeasting process and it takes days before you can eat him," say the instructions that accompanied my container of doughy goo.

Herman appears to be the edible equivalent of a chain letter. I have instructions on how to 'feed' and nurture Herman for the next 9 days (with flour, milk and sugar) until I divide my yeast grown mixture into 5 and give 4 away to friends together with instructions. On day 10 I feed Herman some more tasty ingredients and then I get to bake him into a cake!

I can't wait. I'll keep you posted.

But I can't help wondering who the heck is Herman... How long has he been going from friend to friend... and how does this yeasting process stop him from going off...

Day 3 and I've been stirring my Herman cake mixture for the last few days. Tomorrow I feed him flour, milk and sugar...

Day 7 and I'm still happily stirring my Herman cake mixture, but it has definately grown. 1 more day of stirring then it's time to feed Herman again and divide him into 5 and give him to 4 lucky friends.

Day 9 It's time to feed Herman today for the final time then divide him up to give away. Then tomorrow I'll be baking him...

Day 10 After dividing my Herman mixture and giving my Herman babies away to 4 hesitant friends, it's time to bake my Herman friendship cake. After adding the final selection of ingredients to the mix, Herman appears to have become a nutty gooey mess but there's plenty of it so all looking good.

Baking Herman proves a complete success, I even had a little mixture left and made a couple of Herman cup cakes to use it up. The Herman recipe I used involved adding chopped mixed nuts and grated apple which gave it a textured, natural and not too sweet taste. I suspect you can add all sorts of things to the Herman mixture though. The final mark of approval came after taking my baked Herman cake to share with colleagues at work - which seemed to go down well.

I can't help but feel though, that it would be really interesting to track the chain of Herman and find out whose cake tin your Herman offspring will eventually end up in...

My Links : Buy SHOES Now and Pay Later Big 5 Shoes Ballet Shoes 2007 Best Shoes For Running