Friday, November 22, 2013

Herman the German

My lovely sister-in-law gave me some of her Herman starter last week.  To be precise, Herman the German Friendship Cake.

To start with, I didn't read the instructions in full - so thought all I had to do was mix and add ingredients every 5 days.  Turns out you're supposed to give Herman a good old beating every day - oops.  Any way, we reached day 10 yesterday (baking day).  I was too busy with Friday play group, chasing chickens and tending to the garden to bake so Herman was divided and baked this morning.

The idea is that you quarter Herman, bake with some and give away the rest - but that's something you cannot really do at 6am, on Saturday, in your PJs.  So with a monster batch of Herman starter and hungry kids I decided to keep quarter for another starter, make 2 cakes and whip up pancakes with the rest.  Let's just say the kids aren't hungry any more and I now have a good way to use up extra Herman starter.

The Herman cake calls for a lot of sugar and some cooking apples, which I don't have.  I replaced apples with ripe bananas from my fruit bowl and halved the sugar.

 
 Herman Pancakes

1/4 of a 10 Day Old Herman Starter
1 Giant Freaky Frida Egg (1 or 2 normal eggs would work too)
4 T Plain Flour
1t Baking Powder
Splash of Milk

Beat starter, egg, flour and baking powder together.  Add a splash or 2 of milk and stir again.  Keep adding milk till you get a pancake batter consistency (or leave slightly thicker and make pickelets).  Grease your frypan and cook on med-low heat as the sugar in the starter tends to burn if you cook too high.  Flip pancake over when bubbles appear on the surface.  Cook the other side for a minute or so.  We had our with Fig and Ginger conserve that I got from Peplers Fine Foods - just down the road.  Beautiful.

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