A cake called Herman

This cake is special because

 – it takes 10 days to make – and in that time, you're supposed to stir it, feed it and talk to it (no wonder it has a name like Herman).

 – it's a gift that keeps on giving. Oh and it's alive. After your Herman dough grows for 10 days, you split it into five portions, and give four of them to four friends. You bake your portion, while your friends' little Hermans will grow into big Hermans, and they will split it, give it to four friends. And so on.

So how do you make a Herman cake? After I read about this trend (currently big in Britain, though the tradition has been around for a long time), I knew I wanted to find out. Yesterday was day one of the experiment. I found lots of recipes on the internet, but based what I did on this recipe.

Start with:
90 ml warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoon (or 2 packages) dry yeast

In a large plastic or glass bowl, put the sugar in the warm water, shake it around a bit so that the sugar dissolves, then add the yeast. (I don't know why, but apparently Herman doesn't like metal, so don't use a metal bowl.) Put the bowl in a warm place and let it sit for 10 minutes. Since it's winter and cold, I turned the oven on low (50°) and put the bowl in there. Your sugar water yeast mixture will double in size (see photo above).

Now you'll need
460 g flour
400 ml sugar
500 ml milk

Mix it all in together with the yeast mixture, stir with a wooden spoon, and cover loosely, with a tea towel or loose lid - Herman has to breathe - and set aside and keep at room temperature.

So that is day one of the Herman Cake experiment – it looks like the photo to the right after it's all mixed together. Tomorrow (day two) I'm just supposed to stir Herman 2 or 3 times. I'll do that and let you know how it goes. Once I know my experiment won't kill anyone, I'll tell you how it goes on. :-) I'm a little curious what it's going to smell like in the next few days, since it has milk in it. According to my sources it should smell yeasty and not sour. We shall see. I'll keep you updated as the experiment goes on. :-)

Update: It's day three, and I'm a bit worried that I haven't been stirring or talking to Herman as much as I should. I also can't decide if he smells OK – sometimes I think what I'm smelling is yeasty (good) and sometimes I think it's sour (not so good). 

Tomorrow, day four, it's time to feed Herman – 200 ml milk, 200 g sugar, and 250 g sifted self-raising flour.

Right – self-raising flour? That's hard to find in Germany. The internet says to mix the 250 g flour with half a package of baking powder. We shall see ...