My sweet and thoughtful friend Tanya (yes, the same amazing Belle from the Holy Alphabet post) just stopped by on this cold and rainy day with a warm loaf of Amish Friendship Bread and a starter for me. The starter is for four new loaves. We will definitely be enjoying our Friendship bread tonight with the delicious Sausage and Barley Soup I have in the Crock Pot. If that turns out as yummy as it smells, I’ll put up the recipe tomorrow. It’s a cold, raw day here and I can’t wait to dig into a lovely loaf of bread from the hands of my beautiful friend and a bowl of belly-warming soup.

Amish Friendship Bread

Important Notes: 

DO NOT use any type of metal spoon or bowl for mixing.

If air gets into the bag, let it out.

It is normal for the batter to rise, bubble and ferment.

DAY 1  Do nothing. This is the date your starter was begun.

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 cup plain flour, 1 cup milk, and 1 cup of sugar. Mush the bag.

DAY 7  Mush the bag.

DAY 8  Mush the bag.

DAY 9  Mush the bag.

DAY 10 It is time to bake! Follow the directions below.

1. Pour entire contents of bag into a nonmetal mixing bowl.

2. Add 1 1/2 cups plain flour, 1 1/2 cups sugar, and 1 1/2 cups milk. Mix well.

3. Measure out 4 separate batters of 1 cup each into 4 one-gallon Ziploc bags. Keep one for yourself and share the other three with your most beautiful friends (I might have embellished this part a little!) along with these directions. Make sure to write the date on the bag. This will be the first day for the starter.

4. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

5.  To the remaining batter in the bowl, add:

      3 eggs                       3/4 cup oil                            1 lg box of instant vanilla pudding

      3/4 cup milk             3/4 cup sugar                       1/2 tsp baking soda 

       2 tsp cinnamon       1/2 tsp vanilla                      1 1/2 tsp baking powder

       1/2 tsp salt               2 cups plain flour

6.  Grease two loaf pans and mix an additional 1/2 cup sugar and 1 Tbsp cinnamon. Dust the bottom of the greased pans with half of this mixture.

7.  Pour batter evenly into two pans and sprinkle with remaining sugar mix.

8.  Bake for one hour. Cool until bread loosens from pan, about 10 minutes. (Cupcakes – bake about 25 minutes, mini-loaf pans about 30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean).

I started to write this and then realized that if you don’t have the starter bag from a friend, this is really meaningless. So after a not very exhaustive search of the internet, I found what I believe are the ingredients for the starter bag.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 1 cup all-purpose flour, divided
• 1 cup white sugar, divided
• 1 cup milk

DIRECTIONS

Go make yourself some Amish Friendship Bread and pass it along to the beautiful Belles in your life!

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