Delicious Reading: Amish Friendship Bread and “The Friendship Bread Kitchen”

During stay-at-home orders for COVID-19, so many people took up bread baking that there was a shortage of yeast. “USA Today” reported that along with toilet paper and disinfectants, flour, sugar and yeast were flying off the shelves. For the four-week period ending April 11, yeast sales jumped 410% year over year, according to the market research firm Nielsen.

Perhaps that is why some people became interested in sourdough. You only need to use yeast once to create the starter, and then you can make bread from the starter over and over again. Maybe that was why in a moment of weakness, I agreed to take a bag of “Amish Friendship Bread” starter from my friend Halley.

While it had probably been a decade since I last had a starter, I felt like quoting “The Godfather:” “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” Anyone who has ever been given such a bag knows it is a bit like “The Song That Never Ends.” Every time you use the starter to make some bread, you create four more starters. If you keep one of the starters for yourself, you are baking bread again in 10 days … and making four more starters when you do. But the sweet bread that results from this starter is so delicious, at first, you don’t mind.

This time around, though, I started asking questions. Is this really Amish? How do you start this if you don’t have a starter? Do I have to make it every 10 days? Could I make flavor variations other than cinnamon? That was how I discovered the “Friendship Bread Kitchen” (friendshipbreadkitchen.com/), a site created by Darien Gee, a St. Louis native now based in Hawaii.

Gee started the site in 2010 when she was writing her novel about three strangers who forge a friendship. Soon the characters’ camaraderie extends to everyone in their small town in the guise of a unique and wonderful gift: friendship bread. Darien says the bread might not really have Amish origin, but “the essence of the bread is taken straight from the Amish playbook — share what you have with others. Since each recipe yields two loaves, you can keep one and give one away. I can’t think of anything more perfect than that.”

I am beginning this recipe with creating a starter, even though I may soon have enough of those for the entire Southeast Missourian readership. After the bread recipe, I provide some of Darien’s suggestions for saving your starter when you don’t want to make bread again so soon, and finally, I provide some variations I have created from the basic recipe.

Ingredients:

• .25 ounce active dry yeast (or 1 packet)

• ¼ cup warm water, 110°F (45°C)

• 1 cup flour

• 1 cup sugar

• 1 cup milk

Instructions:

In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Let stand 10 minutes.

In a 2-quart glass, plastic or ceramic container, combine 1 cup flour and 1 cup sugar. Mix thoroughly with a whisk or fork.

Slowly stir in 1 cup milk and dissolved yeast mixture.

Cover loosely and let stand at room temperature until bubbly. Consider this Day 1 of the 10-day cycle. For the next 10 days, handle starter according to instructions for Amish Friendship Bread.

Recipe Notes

The starter should be left at room temperature. Drape loosely with dish towel or plastic wrap. Do not use metal utensils or bowls. If using a sealed Ziploc bag, be sure to let the air out if the bag gets too puffy. Your yield may exceed 4 cups depending on the temperature of your kitchen and eagerness of your starter. If this happens, reserve one cup for baking and divide the remaining batter into Ziploc baggies of 1 cup each to freeze for future use or share with friends.

Instructions to go with a bag of the starter:

Do not refrigerate starter. It is normal for the batter to rise and ferment. If air gets in the bag, let it out.

Day 1: Do nothing.

Day 2: Mash the bag.

Day 3: Mash the bag.

Day 4: Mash the bag.

Day 5: Mash the bag.

Day 6: Add to the bag 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk. Mash the bag.

Day 7: Mash the bag.

Day 8: Mash the bag.

Day 9: Mash the bag.

Day 10: Follow the directions below:

1. Pour the entire bag into a nonmetal bowl.

2. Add 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup milk. Mix well.

3. Measure out equal portions of 1 cup each into 4, 1-gallon Ziploc bags. Some people will end up with 4 to 7 portions depending on how active your starter has been, especially if you made your starter from scratch.

4. Keep one of the bags for yourself (or leave it in the mixing bowl if you plan to bake right away), and give the other bags to friends along with the recipe.

REMEMBER: If you keep a starter for yourself, you will be baking in 10 days. The bread is very good and makes a great gift. Should this recipe not be passed onto a friend on the first day, make sure to tell them which day it is when you present it to them.

5. To the 1 cup Amish Friendship Bread Starter add:

• 3 eggs

• 1 cup oil

• ½ cup milk

• 1 cup sugar

• ½ teaspoon vanilla

• 2 teaspoons cinnamon

• 1½ teaspoons baking powder

• ½ teaspoon salt

• ½ teaspoon baking soda

• 2 cups flour

• 1 small box vanilla instant pudding

• 1 cup nuts chopped (optional)

• 1 cup raisins (optional)

6. Preheat oven to 325° F (165° C).

7. Grease two large loaf pans.

8. Dust the greased pans with a mixture of ½ cup sugar and 1½ teaspoons cinnamon.

9. Pour the batter evenly into loaf or cake pans and sprinkle the remaining cinnamon-sugar mixture on top.

10. Bake for one hour or until the bread loosens evenly from the sides and a toothpick inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean.

Follow these steps and you’ll have starter on hand, ready to use when YOU want to bake:

1. Prior to freezing, your starter needs to be thriving and active, which means it should have been fed in the past 24 hours. Prior to that, your starter should have had plenty of bubbles. IMPORTANT: Freezing old starter or starter that’s no longer active means you’ll have the same blah starter when you defrost it later. You don’t want that. Make sure your starter is in good shape so it can handle the deep freeze.

2. Use a one-gallon Ziploc freezer bag for every one cup of starter you’ll be freezing. Prepare the bags by writing AMISH FRIENDSHIP BREAD STARTER on the front in permanent marker, and label with the day’s date.

3. Mix your starter well, then add one cup (about 280 g) to each bag. I usually add a little extra, because I know I won’t be able to squeeze all of it out of the bag later.

4. Remove the air from the bag, seal well, then roll or fold each bag up for easy storage.

5. Pop into your freezer. That’s it!

Variations:

Banana Bread: Substitute vanilla pudding with banana pudding mix. Substitute oil with 2 mashed, ripe bananas.

Chocolate Bread: Substitute vanilla pudding with chocolate pudding mix. Substitute cinnamon with cocoa powder. Substitute optional nuts and raisins with chocolate chips.