I made a baking friend in Herman the German Friendship Cake this week, after being given Herman by a friend at work. Herman is basically a pass a long sour dough cake, whose recently grown in size, both in my kitchen and the media. I created two sweet Herman cakes, an Apples and Hare Herman and Hot Cross Herman. I got the idea for the latter while stirring and feeding Herman over the Easter weekend, as I fed myself hot cross buns! Like a hot cross bun he contains raisins, lemon zest and mixed spice, with a lemon and brandy icing cross. My Apples and Hare Herman on the other hand contains apples, cinnamon and hazelnuts with hazelnut oil used in place of cooking oil to really enhance the hazelnut flavour. Apple juice and icing sugar makes up the icing  that I’ve used to decorate Herman with. The circle of whole roasted hazelnuts on top of the cake represent all the friends Herman has made and will continue to make and bake as he gets shared out.