Amish Friendship Bread

[signseeker]

Finally made some Amish friendship bread today. (You have to wait 10 days from the time you get the "start" from someone else.) It's deee-licious!!

So, here's my dilemma. I don't want to keep giving so much of it away. See, you add stuff after a while and then divide into 5 parts - one to bake, one to keep yourself to start over and 4 to give to your friends.

Is there a way to tweak the recipe so I can bake everything except keep the one "start" for myself?

I'd like to keep this going all summer/fall if I can... we love it. It's almost like a sourdough thing cuz you don't need yeast, huh?

Also, can you tweak the recipe to add applesauce in place of the oil? We're going to have lots of apples, I think, and I want to make applesauce for baking...

[signseeker]

Here's the original recipe...



Amish Friendship Bread




Day 1 . . . . . . . . Do nothing.
Day 2 . . . . . . . . Squish dough inside bag and let out excess air.
Day 3 . . . . . . . . Squish dough inside bag and let out excess air.
Day 4 . . . . . . . . Squish dough inside bag and let out excess air.
Day 5 . . . . . . . . Squish dough inside bag and let out excess air.
Day 6 . . . . . . . . Add 1 C flour, 1 C sugar and 1 C milk.
Squish together and let out excess air.
Day 7 . . . . . . . . Squish dough inside bag and let out excess air twice a day.
Day 8 . . . . . . . . Squish dough inside bag and let out excess air twice a day.
Day 9 . . . . . . . . Squish dough inside bag and let out excess air twice a day.
Day 10 . . . . . . . Squeeze out dough into large non-metal bowl.
Add 1 ? C flour, 1 ? C sugar, 1 ? C milk.
Mix with non-metal spoon. Pour 1 C portions into 4 separate
Ziploc bags and mark with date. Keep one for yourself and
give other three to friends along with instructions.




You will have about 1 C of dough left in your bowl. Mix in:
1 C oil
? C milk
3 eggs
? tsp vanilla


In a separate bowl, mix together:
2 C flour
1 C sugar
1 ? tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
? tsp salt
1 box (5.1oz) instant vanilla pudding


Slowly add dry ingredients to dough and mix together.
Pour batter into greased and floured loaf pans (about 2 medium or 5 small).
Mix ? C sugar and ? tsp cinnamon and sprinkle on top of batter.
Bake at 325* for 55-60 min. depending on loaf size or until toothpick comes out clean.




*Try adding different flavors of pudding or extra mix-in's like chocolate
chips, nuts, raisins, craisins, coconut, etc. You may omit cinnamon
if trying out other variations.

[Earthling]

I would half all the amounts you add to the bread so it would make 3 loaves. With sourdough you add as much flour & water as you want to make the amount you want so it is the same principle. Then you would end up with 3 loaves - 1 to keep for the start and 2 to bake. Who wants to bake only one loaf with a family? Let me know how that works. It is a good recipe.

[signseeker]

Okay... I'll try that.

Do you know how to make the very first "start" or whatever you call it?


WAIT- So you're saying when I first squeeze it out into the bowl, from the baggie, I add 1/2 THOSE ingredients and go from there? Or half the other ingredients, like the eggs and all that...??

[Earthling]

On day 6 & 10 - half those ingredients. The other recipe instructions pertain to each 1 cup of start so make a loaf of the bread per the instructions for every 1 cup of start. Make sense? I am a little confused as the directions should have you end up with about 8 1/2 cups of start according to the amount of ingredients added - not 4 cups.

I have a really good sourdough start that is over 150 years old . I don't know how to make this Amish one from scratch. Most sourdoughs are better the older they are, therefore new ones you make yourself are fairly bland.

[signseeker]

Whoa! 150 years old? There is just something amazingly cool about that.