Amish Friendship Bread

Amish Friendship Bread is going around Prescott and Prescott Valley and it is delicious! We received our first two starter bags about two weeks ago from Jake and Kayla. I had never heard of it before, but I was very excited to have to take care of the dough and bake the bread.

Amish Friendship Bread is a type of sourdough starter that is often shared in a manner similar to a chain letter. The sweet, cake-like cinnamon bread is a common bread that is made from this starter. It has characteristics of both pound cake and coffee cake.

With Amish Friendship Bread, you receive a bag of starter dough and "take care" of it for 10 days. On day 10, you add some ingredients, make additional starters from your batch and then bake your bread. During our 10 day "taking care" period, we were on our trip to Lake Powell. I decided to bring the bread dough with us, since it had to be "taken care of." On day 6, you are to add some sugar, flour and milk, which makes the dough ferment and build gases. I planned to get the milk from the hotel breakfast; however, I was lazy in my measuring and only had enough for one bag. Oops...one bag continued on and the other went into the trash.

Well the next day, I left my surviving bread unattended in the hotel room when we out in the Lake for about 6 hours. When we returned, I was shocked and saddened to find out that my bag had exploded because of the gases that it created. Sad times...I had to throw that batch away too. So, there I was without any Amish Friendship Bread and I was quite sad.

The Sunday that we returned from our trip, Jeremy worked and told Jake and Kayla about our unfortunate event and guess what! They brought me another bag yesterday!! Thanks you guys! The bag they brought me was already at day 10, so I baked my loafs last night and created 3 starters of my own. I'm planning to keep one starters so that I can make more bread and play with the recipe a bit.

This bread is a bit heavy on the ingredients, but it's worth it because it's wonderfully delicious. I took one loaf into work today and it was gone in about an hour! So, all you need is to receive a starter bag from a friend and you can make this tasty bread. :)

One of my starters to give away.

The loaf all cooked in the pan.

All sliced up and ready to go to work with me.

Amish Friendship Bread

Important Note: Don't use metal spoons or equipment. Do not refrigerate. Use only glazed ceramic or plastic bowls or containers. Gases will be created as bread ferments, release air from bag, if necessary.

1 cup of starter mix

Day 1:

Do nothing with the starter.

Days 2-5:

Mash the bag.

Day 6:

Add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, and 1 cup milk. Mash the bag.

Days 7-9:

Mash the bag.

Day 10:

Add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Mash. Take out 3 cups and place 1 cup each into three separate plastic containers. Give one cup and a copy of this recipe to three friends. To the balance (a little over one cup) of the batter, add the following ingredients and mix well.

1 cup oil
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 - (5.1 oz) box instant vanilla pudding
1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon
Optional: 1 cup nuts, 1 cup raisins, anything you'd like!

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Mix well. Grease two bread pans. Mix 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tsp. cinnamon. Sprinkle half the cinnamon sugar mixture on bottom of pan. Pour batter into two the well greased and sugared bread pans. Sprinkle remaining mixture on top. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour. Let cool and enjoy!