Herman Friendship Cake??

Soubrette

A colleague gave my husband the yeasty herman mixture and he swears he's been stirring and feeding it (although perhaps not stirring as much as the instructions say).

He fed it for the last time yesterday but noticed that it wasn't bubbling at all.

Today it doesn't seem to have done anything - no bubbles at all, it looks like a thick pancake mix.

It's at the divide into 5 stage - is there anything I can do with it apart from chuck it?

Gigervamp

Sorry, no help here, I just had to look to see what a dead Herman mixture was! I take it that it's some kind of sourdough starter?

minimooch

wow herman! I used to make that as a teenager, drove my mother mad. havent heard of it years

Triker

Had to google, now I want one http://www-food.com/herman-food.php

Penelope_Penguin

There's more on the Herman Friendship cake here (I'll merge this later).

Can you add some more yeast to it and make some dough - pizza, rolls, pitta?

frannybaby

It does sound like it might not have got going well enough.

You could start again from scratch with this recipe, which has worked very well for me.

• Step 1. Mix 3 ½ tbs. whole wheat flour with ¼ cup unsweetened pineapple juice. Cover and set aside for 48 hours at room temperature. Stir vigorously 2-3x/day. (“Unsweetened” in this case simply means no extra sugar added).
• Step 2. Add to the above 2 tbs. whole wheat flour and 2 tbs. pineapple juice. Cover and set aside for a day or two. Stir vigorously 2-3x/day. You should see some activity of fermentation within 48 hours. If you don’t, you may want to toss this and start over (or go buy some!)
• Step 3. Add to the above 5 ¼ tbs. whole wheat flour and 3 tbs. purified water. Cover and set aside for 24 hours.
• Step 4. Add ½ cup whole wheat flour and 1/4 to 1/3 cup purified water. You should have a very healthy sourdough starter by now.

I got this from the Breadtopia website which has a lot of great tips for getting sourdough right.

Triker

Right I've started off a Herman using your recipe Frannybaby...will keep you posted if it works ok.

Soubrette

Well, after several days of looking smooth and pancake like, Herman bubbled to life and put on about a cm of bubbles overnight (coinciding with the heating being off for the warmer weather so don't know what was inhibiting him before).

I check the internet and carefully sniffed him, he smelt ok and then checked he hadn't split - no it was still all one mix.

So I made two herman cakes, a choc chip and an apple and cinnamon one. Unfortunately as my recipe warns against using too small a cake tin in case he sinks in the middle, I had it in mind he was like a fruit cake (despite being yeasy and having baking soda added), cue huge expanding hermans dripping all over the oven.

I had the bit between my teeth then though so I made another apple and cinnamon herman (I'd used all my choc chips) and put it in a loaf tin (and only half full). I had a bit of mixture left over so put them in muffin cases.

The muffins tasted.....funny. I once made some cakes with bicarb instead of baking powder and the herman muffins tasted slightly of this. The main loaf also had a slight bitter aftertaste but only on the crust, once the outside of the cake was cut off, it was delicious.

I have therefore junked Herman, and when I'm in the mood for more herman I shall use frannybaby's recipe and make my own starter

maering

Hi

The simple recipe to create a fermented starter 2 cups flour, 2 cups sugar, 2 cups water (safer) or milk Put in bowl with cover of clean tea towel, this will capture the yeasts that are around locally , stir once a day for 20 days, after add 1 cup each of above, stir each day another 4 days add one of each split, bake, give away....

maering

BTW if anyone is near me & wants a cup of stater PM me