Herman came to live with us last Saturday. I accepted him from a very good friend with considerable enthusiasm. How hard could he be? He arrived securely sealed in a tupperware box with a set of instructions. I am ashamed to admit that after one Jubilee Pimms too many, I forgot all about Herman and left him in his airtight tupperware tomb overnight. Fortunately he is made of strong stuff and survived his ordeal.On day two I transferred him to a large mixing bowl as instructed and gave him a good stir.
From day two onwards Herman has been festering away in the kitchen, his yeasty stale beer breath cheerfully greeting us each morning. Colin says he stinks, I think he smells interesting.
For the past few days I have been the enthusiastic custodian of not one but two Hermans. I agreed to adopt the second Herman (a sibling of the first) as his original owner didn't think he would survive a camping trip.Both Hermans have been satisfyingly active since they were fed on Day 4. Yesterday the adopted Herman tried to escape from his bowl and made a horrible mess of my tea towel.
As today is a Sunday and I am highly unlikely to have either the time or inclination for home baking after work tomorrow, I decided to live dangerously and bake my Herman cake today. Molly was initially keen to help but at the last minute decided that she would prefer to play 'fashion ladies' with Daisy. This appears to involve prancing around the garden wearing ill-fitting swimsuits and throwing dubious dance moves.
Undeterred, I enthusiastically mixed in all the extra ingredients, which I suspect would make quite a fine cake by themselves without Herman.
There are lots of websites devoted to Herman. He has featured in the Guardian and even has his own wikipedia entry. I was particularly impressed with this version and decided to make my Herman in a cake tin rather than a roasting tin. Whilst being fine for roast potatoes, none of my roasting tins look clean enough for cake baking. I finally put Herman in the oven at about 3.35pm.
5.22pm Herman is still not cooked. He is slightly more cooked than he was but still soggy in the middle. I am wishing I had followed the instructions properly and put him in a roasting tin. I have taken Herman out of the oven, removed the cake tin and turned him over, my eyes stinging with the acrid stink of burnt raisins (surely one of the worst smells known to mankind).
4.49pm After a bit of optimistic prodding, I have cut Herman in half, put each half on a baking sheet and stuffed him back in the oven. Maybe I can cut the burnt bits off later?
18.13pm After two and a half hours Herman is finally out of the oven. He is still not properly cooked and looks alarmingly like something from Prometheus. In fact the more I think about it, Herman is a lot like something from Prometheus. He takes over his host's life for an incubation period then evolves into something unpredictable, uncontrollable and rather frightening.
