Amish Friendship Bread

Here is the recipe that is circulating in Florida and probably other places as well. You can make your own "starter" by mixing 1 cup milk, 1 cup sugar & 1 cup flour, place in a zip top bag and then follow the directions.

**Do NOT use metal spoon, whisk or bowls!
**Do NOT refrigerate starter.
**If air gets in the bag, let it out.
**It is normal for the batter to thicken, ferment & bubble.

___Day 1 This is the day you may receive that starter. Do nothing.
___Day 2 Squish/squeeze the bag.
___Day 3 Squish/squeeze the bag.
___Day 4 Squish/squeeze the bag.
___Day 5 Squish/squeeze the bag.

___Day 6 Add 1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour and 1 cup milk (not skim). Put in a larger ziptop bag and squish the bag to mix.

___Day 7 Squish/Squeeze the bag.
___Day 8 Squish/squeeze the bag.

___Day 9 Squish/squeeze the bag.
___Day 10 In your large ziptop bag, add 1 ½ cups flour, 1 ½ cups sugar and 1 ½ cups milk and squish/mix well. Pour (4) 1 cup starters into 4 ziptop bags. Keep one for yourself and give the other three to friends along with the instructions. It is helpful to mark what day is DAY 1 on the bag.
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Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease 2 large loaf pans (or muffin tins-makes 2 dozen).

1 cup vegetable oil
½ cup milk
3 eggs, whisked
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
½ tsp baking soda
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
2 Tbs cinnamon
1 large box instant vanilla pudding

*You will want to use 2 mixing bowls ( I use a large one for the dry and my large 4 cup glass measuring cup for the wet)
*Mix your wet ingredients together very well. Sift your dry ingredients together in a seperate bowl. Slowly add the wet batter into the dry, stirring as you pour. Do not overmix, as your bread/muffins will not rise well (you create gluten).


*Mix an additional 2 Tbs cinnamon and ½ cup sugar in a separate bowl and sprinkle half of it into the bottom of your pans, then pour batter into pans. Sprinkle remaining sugar mixture over the top of each loaf.
*Bake at 325 degrees for 45-50 minutes (bread) and 23 minutes for muffins; or until toothpick comes out clean. Serve warm or cool.

*Options: add 1 cup chopped pecans, &/or raisins or dried cranberries.
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Just a few tips & hints for the Friendship bread, after we have made it for about 2 months now:

*You can add 1/2 cup of milk, sugar & flour on days 6 & day 10 (instead of the larger amounts) which will keep the amount of starter down if you don't have any more friends to pass it on to.

*You can replace the sugar with Splenda.

*You can use the sugar-free pudding.

*It calls for 1 cup oil. Applesauce is a good replacement for oil in baking, if you want to keep the calories/fat lower. I use 1/2 cup applesauce & 1/2 cup oil. Haven't been brave enough yet to just do all applesauce, as I think it might be too dry.

*I use silicone pans and you don't really need the sugar & cinnamon mixture in the bottom of the pan. It makes them sticky if not eaten asap.

*I make them as muffins rather than a loaf of bread. It makes 2 dozen. It takes them about 23 minutes to bake.

*You can use just about any "add-ins" that you like. Here are some I've tried:
*2 Mashed, really ripe bananas, walnuts and replace the vanilla pudding with Banana pudding.
*Craisins & pecans.
*Macadamia nuts, golden raisins, candied cherries & dried apricots. (I had leftover fruits from fruitcake at Christmas) Really yummy!
*Pistachio nuts, coconut & dried pineapple. DELISH! (I left out the cinnamon) (Tasted tropical)
*Chocolate chips, walnuts, replaced the vanilla pudding w/ chocolate and replaced the 2 tbs.
of cinnamon with 2 tbs. of cocoa powder. (We just made these today and they are really tasty. Chocolaty without being fudgy and heavy. Just needed 1 cup of chips and 1 cups of nuts and we used 1/2 cup of each) If made again, I would double the cocoa used.
*Fresh blueberries.

*Can be frozen. I usually freeze a dozen muffins and save for later. If they are all left out, a certain someone who I am married to would eat them all NOW.

My original recipe left me with some questions. I guess the way it was written out. So, I had to call my Mom and verify some things. Then, I retyped it. One thing that bugged me to death was how lumpy it gets when you add all of the dry & wet ingredients into the same bowl AND then can't use a metal whisk or mixer. I wore out my arm trying to get those stupid big lumps out! Finally after about 3 or 4 times of making it, I remembered to put my dry ingredients in one bowl and my wet in another and slowly add them/mix them together. TAH DAH! No lumps!