Amish Friendship Bread Day!

Today was the official baking day for the friendship bread that I started 10 days ago (the starter miscalculation that left me with 10 starters to give away!). All in all, I think the journey from Oklahoma to Danville, VA was successful:
We baked 2 starter's worth and saved 2 more to freeze/give away. I'm fairly sure the reason you can make 2 loaves from one starter is because it is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to eat nearly an entire loaf the second it comes out of the oven.

It's fun baking in my mother-in-law's kitchen at Thanksgiving because we always blast the Christmas tunes. It's NEVER to early for Christmas tunes, I think (much to the annoyance of my poor college roommates). This year I danced around with Joe to "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" while we waited for the bread to cool off.


I don't know which was better; the bread or the dancing. I think he liked it too.

I hope everyone else's bread turned out well! Please let me know if you were baking today! (Link for recipe is here, in case you need it.)

Amish Friendship Bread & Challenge

First of all, have you ever had this stuff? Um, wow. Pretty much anything that is COMPLETELY ENCRUSTED IN CINNAMON AND SUGAR is just about my idea of heaven.

Last weekend I was visiting friends and family in Maryland & Virginia, and my college roommate Jessica brought me a loaf and a starter of Amish Friendship Bread, which I had never heard of. The bread was so tasty that it was pretty much devoured within 24 hours. The bread starter, though, looked like a ziploc-bag filled with glue.

Jessica gave me a printout with instructions to "mush the bag" every day for 10 days, and on the 5th day to add flour, sugar, and water. (Click here for recipe and instructions.) On Day 10, you add another round of flour, sugar, and water and then divide the starter into 4ths--one to keep and bake (makes 2 loaves) and 3 to give away.
Willing to do anything to have more of this amazing stuff, I actually packed the ziploc bag into my suitcase and flew it back to Oklahoma, where I faithfully "mushed the bag" and watched as it started to blow up like a balloon due to the fermenting yeast mixture:
I let the air out and watched it fill up again over the next day. Definitely a fun recipe to make with kids, or really juvenile adults like me. On the 10th day, I was pretty much salivating to get the batter mixed and into the oven. True to the recipe's promise, one cup of the starter mixture made 2 loaves of bread, or in our case, 2 servings. Seriously, there is no such thing as portion control with this stuff.
You could find a recipe for the starter online (which I did and made--see below) but the neat thing about this recipe is that it is theoretically started in one person's kitchen and then shared amongst several layers of friends and family. For example, as I was baking my bread, I knew that on the same day my best friends Jessica and Diane were baking theirs because we each had a portion of the same starter.

WatSourced Challenge

Now, in the spirit of Thanksgiving and slightly caught up in the pay-it-forwardness of this recipe, I decided to quadruple the starter recipe I found online so I could bring it back east with me over the holiday to share with friends and family. Mistake. English majors should not try to do big math, especially with sacred Amish secrets. I ended up with not 4, but TEN starter bags (and actually should have been 12, but 2 of the bags are fuller than the others). YIKES!
I have some lovely folks in mind that I am planning to pass some of these to, but now there will be no way for me to know how these all turned out down the road when the starter starts really getting passed around.

So. My plan is to hand out the recipe with this blog address. I'm hoping that whoever ends up with one of my original starters (made with love in my own kitchen!), they will come back to this post and leave a comment letting me know where their kitchen is in the world, how the bread turned out, and if they had any modifications or suggestions. It will be like our own little virtual Amish village. This leads me to add 2 addendums:
1. Just for fun, if you've made this recipe before, even if you don't receive one of MY starters, let us know how it went for you.
2. If you don't feel like searching the internet and want to know how I made my starter (I did make a few tweaks) just post a comment with your email address.
Happy baking!

Amish Friendship Bread recipe for printing

This recipe and starter comes from an Amish tradition of community sharing and delicious food. Each starter has a unique journey that begins in one kitchen, then is passed from one kitchen to the next, collecting stories and beginning traditions along the way. Each starter is alive, much like our relationships, and must be taken care of for 10 days before it is ready to be divided, baked, and shared. It makes a wonderful gift because you can give a loaf of sweet, cinnamony bread and the starter that it came from.

This particular starter began in a kitchen in Oklahoma to be shared at Thanksgiving. To read about the origins of this starter and to see all of the different kitchens it has visited, go to http://watsourced.blogspot.com/2009/11/amish-friendship-bread-challenge.html, and be sure to post a comment yourself! Enjoy.

Day 1: Do nothing, this is the day you receive the batter. The bag is dated.
Day 2: Mush the bag
Day 3: Mush the bag
Day 4: Mush the bag
Day 5: Mush the bag
Day 6: Add to the bag :1 C. flour, 1 C. sugar, and 1 C. cold milk. Mush the bag.
Day 7: Mush the bag
Day 8: Mush the bag
Day 9: Mush the bag
Day 10: Follow the directions below:
1. Pour the entire contents of the bag into a nonmetal bowl.
2. Add 1 C. flour, 1 C. of sugar, 1 C. of milk
3. Measure out 4 separate batters (1 cup each) into 4 Ziplock (1 gallon bags). Keep a starter bag for yourself and give 3 to friends with a copy of the recipe.
Note: If you keep a starter for yourself you will be baking every 10 days.

Baking Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
2. To the remaining batter in the bowl add: 3 eggs, 1/2 cup of oil, 1 cup of milk, 1 cup of sugar, 2 tsp. of cinnamon, 1 tsp. of vanilla, 1 1/2 tsp. of baking powder, 1/2 tsp. of baking soda, 1/2 tsp. of salt, 2 cups of flour, 1 large box of vanilla pudding.
3. Grease 2 large loaf pans .
4. Sugar the pans with a mixture of 1/4 cup of sugar and 1 tsp of cinnamon. Pour the batter evenly into the pans and top with the remaining cinnamon sugar mixture.
5. Bake for approx. 1 hour or until toothpick inserted into loaves comes out clean.

Hints: Do not use any metal spoons or bowls. They will interact negatively with the yeast in the starter. Your bag will fill with air like a balloon—this is normal. Just open the bag and release the excess air as necessary. Feel free to add fruits, nuts, different flavored pudding, or chocolate chips to your bread just before baking.