This is Hermione, a German friendship sourdough cake. On Saturday I received a little tub of gloopy mixture with an accompanying recipe.
In a state of dopeyness I didn't read the instructions properly and broke the chain letter. (Am I now doomed to friendship/baking hell?) Hermione was meant to sit and bubble over 10 days before I was allowed to bake her but because the instructions had been ticked off by the previous person I think my brain thought "oh I just need to bake it then!" (honestly, I was very dopey on Sunday). The baked Hermione has been shared though so she has been passed along in some form.
Although a completely vague recipe, my Hermione turned out very nicely. It suggested walnuts, almonds or raisins to add alongside the apples and cinammon but I opted for pecans. The cake's crust was deliciously crunchy with the liberal sprinkling of demerara sugar and melted butter added before baking. The brown sugar also paired brilliantly with the pecans. I think the cake would taste even better with custard, although it's perfectly moist without.
I also made some banana and chocolate cupcakes last week from the first Hummingbird Bakery book. I made these a couple times last year which worked perfectly, but for some reason they didn't turn out right this time. I made sure all ingredients were room temperature and checked my recipe thoroughly, I even made a second batch (which were slightly better admittedly) but they mostly came out stodgy and mildly anaemic looking. Although the flavour was still lovely, they were nothing like the ones I made last year. Who knows what I did!
On Thursday I bought the Primrose Bakery book after reading favourable blog reviews so I'm going to try their cupcakes this week to compare with the Hummingbird Bakery ones. It's such a pretty book, it was worth buying for the pictures alone. I honestly can't decide which recipe I want to try first.
