Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Amish Friendship Bread

At an Alpha Phi Omega staff retreat a few weeks ago, the Darling Devoted Husband received a starter for Amish Friendship Bread. Since then, we've made two batches, with another due to be made today. I'm sure one could figure out what it's actually made of without too much trouble; probably pretty much yeast, flour, sugar, and milk. The DDH loves it, though, and the first one came due to be baked while I was out of town, so it's something he can do on his own, which always makes him proud.

Here's what we do:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees:


You start with the bag of starter: 

which you mush every day and feed every five days. On the tenth day, you follow the instructions to make more starters and bake some bread. In a large mixing bowl, add to the starter:
  
equal parts flour:
  
sugar:
  
and milk:
  
Stir until combined (it says not to use metal spoons or metal mixing bowls, I'm not sure why):
  
Make your new starters by scooping one cup of batter into each of four gallon-size ziploc bags:
  
Three are to give away and one is to keep for the next batch:
  
To the remaining batter in the bowl, add three eggs:
  
oil:
  
more milk:
  
cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder:
  
more flour:
Then stir until combined:
Butter two loaf pans:
  
 
 Mix together some cinnamon and sugar and coat the loaf pans with it, turning and shaking so it coats all sides and the bottom:
 
  
Put half the batter in each pan:
  
And sprinkle more cinnamon sugar on top:
  
Then bake. Obviously, it's really sweet bread and sort of more appropriate for dessert than anything else, but we eat it with breakfast. The DDH just loves it, and he's giving out all the starters to his friends and coworkers, which is cute. Eventually we will be overrun, however. Luckily, the starter can be frozen for future use when we (and our friends) get too sick of it. Also, Wikipedia claims the starter can be used to make other sorts of breads, too, which I need to investigate. For now, though, it's just for fun!

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