That Herman Friendship Thing

A few weeks ago I be given a recipe for a cake and a bowl of jollop. Turns out that that is "Herman the Friendship Cake". The jollop is a starter mix (kind of like a sourdough starter that works from natural yeasts) which you feed occasionally with flour and stuff, and stir everyday, and about every ten days you give two portions of starter away to friends, bake a cake with a third portion and retain the last portion as a starter for the next cake. And then the whole thing happens again.

I do quickly work out that I do not have enough friends for this project but that I do like the idea of a yeasty cake. The Old Man steps in and tells me that if I just half the quantity of "food" for the starter... I can just half the eventual mix and forget about any friends! This do seem to work and Hermann becomes the "Selfish Cake" ...or "How to have your cake and eat it too". And I do religiously do this thing and try improving the variable results with a dutiful sense of responsibility towards my friendly cake donor.

When I do ask my friendly cake donor how she be getting on with it, she do tell me that she couldn't be bothered with all of that and did throw the starter jollop away.

Do you recognise that feeling that one has been over-conscientious?