The Tale of Herman - A Friendship Cake

You may have noticed me mention Herman in a few posts lately. Herman is a German friendship cake. A colleague asked me if I'd like to take part a while back, I just agreed and thought nothing more of it. A few days later she handed me a plastic container full of cake mixture and a set of instructions. Exciting stuff!

As soon as I got home I emptied my mixture into a metal bowl. Which I later found out was a mistake. Herman contains yeast and apparently metal can kill yeast, so metal is a big no, no! I transferred him into a glass mixing bowl and thankfully he had survived!

The instructions give you ten days to look after Herman before baking him, they are as follows:

Hello, my name is Hermon. I’m a sourdough cake, I am tobe left on the worktop for 10 days without a lid on. Do not put me in thefridge or I will die. If I stop bubbling, I’m dead.

Method. 

Day 1: Take the lid off Hermon and put him in a large mixingbowl. Cover loosely with a tea towel.

Day 2: Stir well with a wooden spoon.

Day 3: Stir well with a  wooden spoon.

Day 4: Hermon is hungry! Add 1 cup each of plain flour,sugar and milk. Stir well. Don’t worry about small lumps – Hermon will eat themlater.

Day 5: Stir well.

Day 6: Stir well.

Day 7: Stir well.

Day 8: Stir well.

Day 9: Hungry again. Add 1 cup each of plain flour, sugarand milk. Stir well.

Divide into 4 equal amounts and give 3 away to friends witha  copy of these instructions.

Hermon 4 stays with you…

Day 10: Hermon is very hungry. Stir well and add thefollowing:

1 cup of sugar

2 cups of plain flour

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla essence

2 heaped tsp ground cinnamon

2 heaped tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

2/3 cup of cooking oil

2 cooking apples, chopped into chunks

½ cup of walnuts / almonds / chocolate chips (optional)

1 cup of raisins (optional)

Mix everything together and pour into a large greasedroasting tin. Sprinkle with ¼ cup of melted butter and ¼ cup of brown sugar.Bake for 45 minutes at gas mark 4 Check after 35 minutes. When cool, cut intofingers. The friendship cake freezes well.

I came home from work on about day 6 to find that Herman had taken over my kitchen, he had outgrown the bowl (he gets bigger everyday) and leaked all over the kitchen work top! Straight to Wilkinson's for a bigger mixing bowl!

I decided against adding the ingredients above. Instead I added one big bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk, one big bar of Cadbury Wholenut and a bag of plain chocolate chips. My name is Leanne and I'm a chocolate, hello :)

He turned out deliciously! 

Ready to start the chain again

As I was given Herman I'm not sure how you would start him off from scratch, but I have found a website that can tell you!

As Herman made his way to you yet?

Recipe : Peanut Butter Cups

I saw this recipe on Ellieand's blog a while back and had to attempt these beauties for myself! I'm a huge fan of Reese's Peanut Butter cups so the thought of making them in my own home really appealed to me!

 I didn't have enough ingredients to make 12 so I just made 6, I will list the correct ingredients to make 12.

You will need:

40g Icing Sugar

125g Peanut Butter

25g Butter

Cupcake cases

400g Chocolate (you can use whichever you prefer, I used dark)

 Add the Peanut Butter and normal Butter to a microwaveable bowl, microwave for 10 - 20 seconds until melted. Mix together well.

Gradually sift the icing sugar into the mixture.

Melt your chocolate and then add a thin layer to each cupcake case, making sure that the bottom is completely covered. (note that you will need to save some melted chocolate for the top of the cups.)

 Add a dollop of the Peanut Butter mixture to each cupcake case.

 Cover the Peanut Butter mixture with the remainder of the melted chocolate.

Place your baking tray in the fridge for at least three hours or until set, and enjoy :)

Recipe : Stilton Turkey Burgers

I've been cooking again :)

I originally planned to follow the Weight Watchers recipe for Chicken Burgers with Crumbled Blue Cheese, but as is becoming the norm I made a few changes.

The recipe was flawed from the start as they didn't have any mince chicken in my local Tesco, so I settled for Turkey instead.

I used:

633g of Turkey Mince, approx 50g of Blue Stilton, 30g / 1/4 cup of breadcrumbs, 1 Dorot Chilli cube, 2 Dorot Garlic cubes, 4 finely sliced red onions, part baked Ciabatta rolls.

The method:

Pre-heat your grill to a medium heat.

Add turkey, breadcrubs, onions, cheese, garlic and chilli into a bowl...

Combine the ingredients *hint wet your hands to prevent sticking*

and separate into four thick patties...

Place under the grill, turning occasionally, until fully cooked. Mine took approximately 30 minutes but this does depend on the thickness. I suggest cutting the burgers in half to check that they are cooked through.

Serve the burgers in your Ciabatta rolls, add any sauce/salad that you require...

Enjoy!! 

The original Weight Watchers recipe gives 9 Pro Points for each burger, I think mine will be slightly less as I skipped the sauces out and used Ciabatta rolls.

This is the first time that I've made burgers and I can't believe how quick and easy it was! I'm now super excited for the 2012 BBQ season!

Recipe : Philly Meatballs

After seeing the Philadelphia advert with the Philly Meatballs practically everyday for a month I decided that I needed to try these Philly Meatballs! I found the recipe on their website here but altered it slightly to suit what I had in the house.

I used:

Six Pork & Leek Sausages (any sausages can be used, these are just what I had in the freezer), one Dorot Crushed Garlic Cube, one beef OXO cube (made up with approx 75ml water), two chopped red onions, 1/2 a tub of light Philadelphia with Chives, spaghetti

The method:

Cook the spaghetti (or other pasta) as directed on the packet...

Skin the sausages (I found this strangely therapeutic!)...

When you have skinned your sausages roll the meat into meatballs, I made three meatballs from each sausage... 

Fry the meatballs until browned all over and cooked through...

Remove the meatballs from the pan and put to the side on some kitchen paper to absorb any excess grease...

Add the onions and garlic to the pan and cook gently to soften the onions...

add the Philadelphia and the stock to the pan...

heat until the Philadelphia has melted...

stir the meatballs into the mixture...

serve over your spaghetti...

and enjoy :)

Recipe : Mini Peanut Butter Oreo Cheesecakes

I stole this recipe from Charlene a while ago and completely forgot to share it with you! These are probably the nicest cakes I have ever made! Chocolate, peanut butter, cheesecake - what's not to like?

YUM!!

I attempted to work out the Weight Watchers Pro Points for these, my rough estimate is 5 PP per cake, which isn't actually too bad, I think I may have worked it out wrong haha. I need to get myself a Weight Watchers scales so that I can work these points out accurately.

Anyway, who cares about dieting when there are cakes as good as these to be made! Onto the recipe...

To make 12 cakes you will need:

2 Packets of Oreos, 12 for the bases and 6 for crushing over the top (you will have some spare to eat while waiting for the cakes to bake)

250g of Cream Cheese (I used extra light Philadelphia - got to attempt to be good somehow!)

65g Granulated Sugar

110g Peanut Butter

1 Large Egg

1. Preheat the oven to 350 Degrees F (gas mark 4). Fill a try with 12 paper cases and place an Oreo in each case.

2. Beat the cream cheese and sugar together until light and fluffy, this takes around three minutes.

3. Add in the peanut butter and beat until combined.

4. Add in the egg and beat until combined.

5. Place some of the mixture on top of each Oreo, as you can see, you don't have to be neat!

6. Break up six Oreos and press them into the mixture.

7. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes on the middle shelf until the edges are turning golden.

Enjoy :) 

Recipe : Chocolate Fridge Cake, No baking!!

Hi all, this is a scheduled post as I will be either on my way or in Reading as you read this. Unfortunately not the festival :( My brother-in-law (to be) lives in Reading so we are taking advantage of the long weekend by booking some days off work to make it even longer and taking a trip to Reading!

I will be back sometime on Sunday, probably late evening, so will be catching up on all your blog posts then. Is it really pathetic that I'm going to miss blogging so much?

Anyway, onto the subject of this post! I thought I'd leave you all with a easy chocolate cake recipe to give you something to do with the extra day off work! I originally saw this recipe on Gretal Rabbit's blog and had to give it a go! A cake with no baking sounds too good to be true!

It wasn't too good to be true...

You will need:

200g of Unsalted Butter

100ml of Golden Syrup

50g of Cocoa Powder

400g of Digestive Biscuits (I went for chocolate biscuits, as I'm a chocolate addict)

200g of chopped nuts (or any other dry ingredient would work)

how cool is this butter packet? No need to weigh it!

The method...

 Cube the Butter and then place it in a saucepan along with the Golden Syrup and Cocoa Powder. Heat on a medium heat until the ingredients are combined, and the mixture is smooth and glossy (as pictured below).

Break your biscuits into even sized chunks. This was quite therapeutic. 

Place the broken biscuits into a bowl with the nuts.

Mix the chocolate mixture into the biscuit and nut mixture until it is evenly coated. 

Spoon the mixture into the tray/dish that you want the cake to set in and flatten it off.

(I mixed it together in the baking dish that I left it to cool in, less washing up!)

 When the mixture has cooled pop it into the fridge for a few hours to set, and voilà, you have a gorgeous chocolate cake!!

Enjoy :)