Herman - German Friendship cake

I recently was the lucky (?!) recipient of a portion of Herman, for those of you not in the know Herman is short for Herman the German Friendship cake, a sort of foodie baking equivalent of a chain letter. Basically you start off with a section of a fermenting sourdough kindly given to you by a friend or in my case, work colleague, which you then love and nuture for 10 days, stirring and feeding until its ready to be incorporated into a cake batter, they are loads of recipe variations in fact Herman even has a website. The key point being once the sourdough is ready to be baked with you split your batch and pass on to friends and so the cycle goes on. Everything you need to know is on the website.

I choose to bake the basic recipe that came with Herman which is basically a apple, cinnamon and raisin variant. There are also bread variants on the website so I might give one of those a try too.

Any body want a slice of Herman ?

Hake with parmesan and parsley crust

I love fish and had recently picked a fabulous piece of Hake at my favourite fish stall on Chorley Market, this recipe is for a quick and easy topping which ensures that you fish stays nice and moist. Its also great as in most cases you will have the required ingredients in the cupboard and fridge.

Hubby declared this yum so next time you are cooking fish give it a go.

Ingredients

• Fresh breadcrumbs, I used stale sourdough blitzed in the foodprocessor
• Fresh lemon zest
• Freshly grated parmesan cheese
• Grind of pepper
• Parsley - fresh or dried
• Little olive oil
• Vegetable oil spray
• Fish fillet - I used hake but you could use cod, salmon, etc just make sure its sustainable

Method

• Blitz your bread crumbs in food processor or blender
• Grate in you parmesan, lemon zest
• Add parsley , pepper and blitz a little more
• Add enough oil to just moisten
• Lightly oil spray your tray
• Place your fish fillets on the tray and press the crumb topping on to them
• Lightly spritz with oil spray
• Bake in 180c oven for approx 15 mins, but vary this depending on the thickness of your fillets.

Delicious, easy recipe