Ya, I got that funny kind of thinking and wondering too when I first heard about this Herman Starter (HS) breads and buns flooding most of the walls in Facebook on the baking sites that I joined. I thought to myself, wah,who is this guy, Herman???? I must meet him one day, as I saw all the bakers whom have met him, had baked awesome, yummy, fluffy and super soft breads and buns. I'm so dying to meet him, and I must meet him!
Well, although some of you who knew me, knows that I no longer eat bread or buns, as I'm on a LCHF-Keto way of eating. But truly, I was a bread person before i was on this WoE, I can eat bread and buns and not rice every day, it's kind of like my staple food last time. That is why I developed the passion in making my own bread and buns, and whats more, my mother -in-law bought a Panasonic Bread Maker and that sums it all, we bake loaves and loaves of bread almost every 2 to 3 days. Then I started to change my lifestyle to LCHF - Keto, and totally cut our Carbs to just 20gm a day, and that leaves me to not much of a chance to eat even a small bun , but only through green leafy vegetables. Anyway, side track, don't bored you with my WoE, 😝😝
My family however , especially my kids, still loves breads and buns and I try to bake for them as much as I can, as I typically believes that homemade are always so much better than those bought in bakeries, where lots of preservatives are put into it. I also get fascinated by the many types of leavening agents used by those expert bakers - water roux, sponge dough, old dough besides the commercial Instant Dry Yeast.
And then, there's this Herman Starter now, in fact he was in the history of homemade yeast for a long long time. Not sure if you have heard of the "Friendly Bread Herman" that was widely shared around the world last time? I recalled it when my friend Jenny Lim told me that this is "that" friendly bread Herman. I was very eager to give it a try, as the comments and feedbacks from those homebakers were just to hard to resist (you know what I meant right? hahaha). Therefore, in no time, I got myself a portion of this Herman Starter and joined myself into their HS Asian group and then it's history! 😍😋
I can't wait to try it on the Single proofing method bread recipe that their group leader , Ms Xiuli shared, and quickly got my Herman Starter ready after following proper instructions on how to feed and store it for future use. And tadah.......this is the finishing product of my very first Herman Starter Bread , I tweaked it a little as i don't want to just bake a white loaf or buns, so I made it into a Cranberries Sugar Crusted Braided loaf instead. It took me 4 hours to get it proofed to double in size, but I heard some members took as long a s 10, 12 or even 15 hours to get it to double, guess my Herman is really strong 😜
Here is the recipe for you if you are interested to try it out, but of course, try to get your hands on some Herman Started first, there are members every where around the world it seems, if you are interested, perhaps you can comment below and I'll try to check with my leader to see if there are members at your area. If you are from Kota Kinabalu, Sabah Malaysia here, you can get it from me , no worries, just let me know.😉
You may download the recipe above by clicking unto this link :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FsfYOktMj5ebudM7dmNHyia7qZxey_sz/view?usp=sharing
What I wish to say was, the outcome of this loaf was really soft, and it doesn't have that heavy yeast smell, and I'm going to try keeping it for 2 to 3 days and see how the texture turn out, and will update here for you to know, OK?
Happy Baking!!
