Friendship Cake

Way back in my teenage years a neighbour passed me a strange bubbling bowl of goo.

I was to stir it daily and ‘don’t forget to feed it.’

I did what I was told and after 10 days I had to split the goo, to pass on its spare siblings and make the rest of it into a cake.

And Lo! I did like the cake. But having passed it on to people who  I now don’t remember it was never to be made again.

Then last year a Twitter friend we know as @DomesticJules from Butcher, Baker said that she had a friendship cake called Herman to pass on. I jumped at the chance and made my very own Herman cake. Again I neglected to keep back a pot of the yeast based mix.

Then a couple of weeks ago a small pot was left at our door with a note to ‘Please look after Archie’. Our next door neighbours had left us a new friendship cake baby!

I did the stirring, and a’feeding and ended up with a whole bowl of baby Archies ready to pass on. He was ready to divide on the same day as Deb’s Baby Shower so I packed some pots to take with me and share out.

I added grated apple, cinnamon, sultanas and cherries to my mix and sprinkled the top with brown sugar. It’s a very sturdy farmhouse style cake, vaguely reminiscent of a Mr Kipling Manor House Cake. It is only improved with a good slick of butter spread on each slice.

I won’t tell you the full details of how to make it because you can only find that bit out when someone passes you the gift of goo.