German Friendship Cake

Many of you have no doubt heard of this particular cake and I Googled it to find that there is even a large 'fan' club of cake makers. Basically it is a cake or even a process that starts with you being given a starter by a 'friend'. Needless to say, I have been given a starter. I hope that there is not a collective grone going on from my readers. Although I suspect that those who have been given one will be doing just that.

Another thing that I discovered is that there are many posts on looking after the starter and keeping it alive but as far as I could see, not too many of the actual cooked cake. So I thought that I would give this whole process a go and make a cake.

I was given a starter about a week before Christmas and as Hubby and I were going away for Christmas we took the thing with us. Well you have to don't you. It needed stiring and feeding and it also needed to be kept warm so no leaving at at home. You can guess what happened..... I left it behind. So on the day that I was supposed to cook  it I was left with no starter. I am rapidly beginning to understand all of the posts on keeping the starter going.

Not to be outdone by a bowl of frothing mess, I opened my cookery books and found one for making the thing from scratch.

This is what you need to do:

Starter
280g plain flour
15g fresh yeast... if you don't have fresh yeast than a teaspoonful of dry yeast is fine.
445ml water

Throw the lot into a non-metallic bowl and mix well. you should have a sticky batter. Cover with a damp tea towel and leave on the kitchen work surface . Each day, give it a stir and recover with the tea towel. You will need to re-dampen the towel. Now three days later your starter is ready to use.

You are now on day 1 of the process. I kid you not.

Watch this space. There is more. We are still 10 days away from  making the cake.
Are you beginning to uderstand why the finished cake does not figure large?