I’m on my second batch…
About two weeks ago, my dear sweet friend Christy offered me some Amish Friendship bread. She handed me the yeast baby with a set of instructions, “ Day 1— do nothing. Day 2- Mush bag. Day 3- Mush bag….etc.” At first it felt like it would be a chore to do, but I still said I would try. After mushing for a few days, I started to become somewhat excited. I was eager to bake this little yeast baby into some wonderful sourdough-cinnamon-10-day-goodness! What? 10 days? Yes, it takes about 10 days for your yeast baby to become just mush from a plastic gallon bag to a wonderful, house smelling with cinnamon goodness bread. My husband Stevan and I ended up baking our bread over at my mother’s house (who also received a batch) and so there fore, no pictures. But alas, Google has saved the day with that:
The instructions are:
Day 1- Do nothing (this is the day you receive your yeast baby that will become that delicious goodness above)
Day 2- Mush the bag. Make sure you allow it to breathe by letting out the air inside as well.
Day 3- The same as above.
Day 4- The same as above.
Day 5- The same as above.
Day 6- Add 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 cup of milk (you can add it in the bag or add the three cups into a bowl and also add your yeast, then back into the bag.) Mush some more.
Day 7- Mush the bag and allow it to breathe again.
Day 8- Mush some more.
Day 9- Mush mush mush.
Day 10- Mush and add do the following:
1) Pour contents of bag into a non-metallic bowl.
2) Add 1 ½ cups flour and 1 ½ cups sugar and 1 ½ cups milk
3) Measure 4 separate batters of 1 cup each into 4 gallon freezer bags, keep one and give out the other 3 bags with a copy of the recipe and date of “DAY 1” written on the bag.
4) Preheat oven to 325 degrees
5) To the remaining batter add:
* 3 eggs
* 1 cup oil
* ½ cup milk
* 1 cup sugar
* 2 tsp. cinnamon
* ½ tsp. vanilla
* 1 ½ tsp. baking powder
* ½ tsp. salt
* 2 cups flour* 1 large box instant vanilla pudding mix
6) Grease 2 large loaf pans and in a separate bowl, mix additional ½ cup of sugar and ½ tsp. of cinnamon and dust greased pans with half of the mixture.
7) Pour the batter evenly into the two loaf pans and sprinkle the remaining sugar/cinnamon mixture over the top.8) Bake for 1 hour. Cool until bread loosens from the pan evenly (about 10 minutes), then turn out onto serving dish. Serve warm or cold.
**If you keep a starter for yourself, you will be baking every 10 days. The bread is very good and makes a good gift. Only Amish know how to create the starter, so if you give them all away, you will have to wait until someone gives one back to you. ENJOY!
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If you yourself would love to start this food chain letter (because that’s what it basically is), you can find a starter recipe here: All Recipes[dot] come Amish Starter. I don’t quite know if it’s the actual recipe or if the one that is being passed around is actually centuries old live yeast. If you want to try, awesome and please let me know :)
Side note:
Once you have made the starter, you will consider it Day One, and thus ignore step 1 in this recipe and proceed with step 2. You can also freeze this starter in 1 cup measures for later use. Frozen starter will take at least 3 hours at room temperature to thaw before using.
