So a few weeks ago I received a sour dough cake starter from a friend. It's an Amish tradition, where someone receives a bit of starter, nurses it about a week and a half, and in the process of keeping it and feeding it every once and a while, it multiplies so that you have enough to make cake for yourself and still parcel out several starters to friends. It is called Herman, because you should name all your baked goods. God know how old it was already when it came to me. I admit that with work and the end of the year exodus of expat friends, the buck, or rather the Herman stopped with me. But not before lots of people enjoyed tasty Hermans.
First off, no one tells you that the recipe makes a monster-sized cake. I made a chocolate banana cake and had to chop it in half and freeze one portion. Because I only made one cake though, I still had starter left. Munchkin enjoyed watching us stir it nightly as the sour starter would make it rise over the day. We let it go another round and then I decided with the holidays coming up we needed to pace ourselves. So I made two cakes to finish off the Herman and stop it's multiplying ways. If anybody was left in town I would have liked to have passed it on but sadly my timing was off by a few weeks. With one part I did the traditional cake: apple chunks, raisins, cinnamon. With the other I reprised the choco-banana but tried chopping up the banana instead.
This beast is so big it takes over an hour to bake. This is why we were late picking up the cot on Saturday. The traditional cake was fantastic. I admit I had my doubts about it at first, because the batter is very dry and sticky and the final product is about as light as a door stop. But it's delicious. Sadly we were not able to try the second one as we took it to S and V's but tiring child kept us from staying for dessert. But I bet it was awesome, and enough to feed a small army as well.
In short, if you receive a Herman they are absolutely good fun and if you like cake you can pretty much keep making them in perpetuity. Cake annuity.
First off, no one tells you that the recipe makes a monster-sized cake. I made a chocolate banana cake and had to chop it in half and freeze one portion. Because I only made one cake though, I still had starter left. Munchkin enjoyed watching us stir it nightly as the sour starter would make it rise over the day. We let it go another round and then I decided with the holidays coming up we needed to pace ourselves. So I made two cakes to finish off the Herman and stop it's multiplying ways. If anybody was left in town I would have liked to have passed it on but sadly my timing was off by a few weeks. With one part I did the traditional cake: apple chunks, raisins, cinnamon. With the other I reprised the choco-banana but tried chopping up the banana instead.
This beast is so big it takes over an hour to bake. This is why we were late picking up the cot on Saturday. The traditional cake was fantastic. I admit I had my doubts about it at first, because the batter is very dry and sticky and the final product is about as light as a door stop. But it's delicious. Sadly we were not able to try the second one as we took it to S and V's but tiring child kept us from staying for dessert. But I bet it was awesome, and enough to feed a small army as well.
In short, if you receive a Herman they are absolutely good fun and if you like cake you can pretty much keep making them in perpetuity. Cake annuity.
3 comments:
Sounds like a great cake. I can understand killing it off, though - feeding those starters daily is more work than you realize. I had one that you fed twice a week, and that was too much for me.
I never knew that there were starters like this for cakes as well as bread. But it makes perfect sense.
they're super yummy! But yes at some point they need to end.
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