to think that those "friendship" cake things are disgusting?

[Helenagrace]

There's a craze in these parts for "friendship" cakes. For those blessed enough to be ignorant of this craze basically someone hands you a horrible, yeasty, festering culture which you grow in your kitchen for 10 days and then make into a cake. Before you make the cake you remove some of the culture and hand it on to other people.

Am I the only one who thinks this is just disgusting and finds the thought of eating something that has been growing in my kitchen for 10 days simply dreadful?

I seem to be offending loads of people by turning down their offers of cultures - the last one actually told me that this mixture was called Herman as it was alive (she is clearly insane).

I'm not BU am I???

I hope none of you saying "eww yuck" eat

Blue cheese or in fact cheese of any sort
Yoghurt
Bread
Any form of alcohol
Ginger beer

and yes, it is alive. It is a live culture of living yeasts

Some of you would have a fucking heart attack if you saw the state of some chefs even in 5* hotels. Most of my career prior to joining the police was in luxury hotels and I have seen some toe curling things even in kitchens where you would think everything would be immaculate.

In my experience most domestic kitchens are quite a lot cleaner than restaurant ones and most mothers are more likely to wash their hands after visiting the loo than a 21 year old male chef.

I see that this in an old thread-but if offered the stuff-pass it on & just not make it yourself if worried?

My neighbour bought a ziplock bag of this stuff round the other day, it looked vile, like a bag of fizzy jizz (SORRY). My face must have been a picture, because she came back later to say I really didn't have to do it if I didn't want to. I did bake it in the end, and it was absolutely delicious!

My Herman was fab and his offspring have gone off to people at DH's work. I was so chuffed to be given the goo from my lovely neighbour.

A work colleage gave me a Herman! up until that point i had no knowledge of such things as friendship cakes, but i did think it a little odd.

Apparrently she thought i would like it because i have children

sadly she gave it to me the week before christmas, and there was no way i was going to be faffing with feeding a bloody cake with all the other stuff i had to get done. I was then worrying about not doing it and stressing about the "karma" that would befall me, should i fail to pass any on.

thankfully, my DH asked me what it was all about, found the whole idea disgusting and promptly chucked the whole lot in the bin! I was sad for about 5 mins then just as i could blame it all on him

next time i see someone approaching with a "Herman" i will have the good sense to hide!

YABU.

I had one just before Xmas. I cooked it with apples and cinnamon and it was the most delicious cake I've ever made.

It's just yeast. I really can't see what's so disgusting. If it was 'dirty' in any way at all the yeast would die.

It's a lot more natural than the chorleywood process which most of our bread products go though.

Sounds like a chain letter in cake form - what happens if you sling it in the bin, - plague of yeast infections perhaps?

Worse probably rubs of the hands/falls out the nose/drops out the mouth of small children who make things in the kitchen I'm sure!

The one with sending people pants has turned up round here. I would rather have cake.

YANBU at all. A good friend of mine turned up on my doorstep with a 'Herman'. I chucked him in the bin shortly after she'd gone and then told her I'd forgotten to 'feed' him and he had died. And I'm not AT ALL :o

I love Herman cake it's absolutely scrummy and you can't knock it till you have tried it

I did one as a kid. T'was tasty and fascinating. i'd love to have another one, just to show the DC. It's weirdddd, but mainly in the sense that I'd never really appreciated how alive yeast is.

(my spell checker seems intent on correcting me to claim that Yeats is alive. sigh . Yeast is alive Yeats is dead - you damn bunch of ignorant silicone chips).

In the instructions it said that if he stops bubbling then Herman has died.

Never had a Herman but did have a ginger beer plant as a kid - wonder how you get hold of them? Would love to do one for ds.

Ooh tell us more Edam sounds interesting.....

Many years ago, the same thing was done with a 'plant' to make ginger beer. Someone gave you a portion of her 'plant' and you made several bottles of ginger beer with it then cut up the plant and handed bits to others.

You had to leave the tops off the bottles otherwise they would explode when the ginger beer reached a particular phase. My aunt did this and left my cousin and me (16 and 15) in the house while she went on holiday with my uncle. What a disaster! When she returned, most of the bottles had exploded because we didn't know that the tops should not be on the bottles. we had been told not to go to the shed though.

My Dss would love this. Exploding ginger beer. Better than pants or cake.

Sad, sad, sad.

Only for saddos.

Well thanks for that Xanadu. A yummy cake can't be sad though really.

Popular with the Amish, according to Google

Imagine that! There are actually other cultures out there, How sad.

You can buy ginger beer plants online but apparently many are not the real thing so you have to do abit of searching. I have never had a Herman before but I would love one.

Why are the Amish funny?

Here is the pants one