Sunday, April 13, 2008

The Answer to What's in the Bag


The answer to what's in the bag is....................................

Amish Friendship Bread

Please note the following: Do not refrigerate

If air develops in the bag, let it out

The batter will rise and ferment

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 C of flour, 1 C of sugar and 1C of milk.

Mash the bag to mix.

Day 7 Mash the Bag

Day 8 Mash the Bag

Day 9 Mash the Bag

Day 10 Follow instructions below


Pour the entire contents of the bag into a non-metal bowl. Add

1/2 C sugar

1 1/2 C flour

1 1/2 C milk

Stir to mix. Then measure out four 1 C measures of the batter and

place in separate 1-gallon Ziplock bags. Keep a starter for yourself and give the other 3 bags to 3 friends along with a copy of this recipe.


Note: If you keep a starter, you will be baking every ten days. If you don't pass this on the first day, be sure to tell the person what day it is that she is receiving it.


Baking Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. To the remaining 1 cup of batter in the bowl add these items:

3 eggs

1 C oil

1 C sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking soda

2 C flour

1 large box of vanilla or chocolate instant pudding

1 cup of raisins or crushed nuts

3. Grease and flour 2 large loaf pans.

4. Pour the batter evenly into the pans.

5. Mix 3 tsp. sugar with 1/4 tsp cinnamon. Sprinkle this over the

batter in loaf pans.

6. Bake for 1 hour. Cool until bread loosens evenly from the sides

of the pans. Turn out onto plate and serve warm, if possible.


Well, this is the recipe that I got 11 days ago from my good friend and neighbor, Dickie. I followed her directions for the ten days and baked the bread last night for dinner. While baking in the oven the kitchen filled up with the most amazing cinnamon sugar smell. Heavenly. The bread turned out well. It is more like a tea bread or coffee cake then a reguler bread. In fact, while looking up web searches on Amish Friendship Bread I came across Amish Friendship Cake. Same recipe.


If you would like to try to make this bread, here's what to do the night before day one rolls around. I can't hand you a starter bag thru the computer but I can tell you what to do that will work. Get a 1-gallon Ziplock bag and put into it these three ingredients:

1/3 C of flour

1/3 C of sugar

1/3 C of milk

Mash to mix and let this bag sit out overnight. The next day start

following the directions for the ten days.


And if you would like to learn more about Amish Friendship Bread here is a site to go to read up on it.



When you compare the recipe there with what I wrote you will see that I made only one change. I thought 1/2 cup of sugar for the topping was way to much for the bread is sweet enough. And I didn't use this sugar mixture to "flour" the loaf pans. I just grabbed my can of Crisco spray with flour and gave a spray coating to the loaf pans.


I also found it helpful to mark the dates on The Days to help me keep track.'For example, next to Day 1 I lightly penciled in April 3, You could also keep track by marking your calendar. I have my starter sitting on the counter so I am going to make the bread again. This time I will use the chocolate instant pudding. On the web I saw that you could also use butterscotch instant pudding. I bet pistachio instant pudding would work too.







3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is an interesting post to be sure. We have had this bread or made it as my wife's sister was married to a German Baptist and they had recipes for this kind of bread. I don't remember the details now because Nancy had been dead for many years but at the time it was something passed around from one family to the next.

In this recipe you could or had to take a ball of dough and use it to make your recipe. So Nancy's bread was worked into and caused our bread to work. Don't know or remember the details.

I still have irons in the fire. I still get checks for things I did back in the early 1970s. They are always welcome and come as surprises.

This Sunday morning it is all of 37 degrees here in SW Ohio where Tecumseh once ran on paths made by the wood buffalo.

We did get warm enough for a couple of days for daffodils and some crocus to pop up but they popped down again.

Abraham Lincoln in Brookville, Ohio.

Jenn K said...

That sounds like a lot of work. Is it tasty?

Judypatooote said...

Jo......I have no patients for the Amish bread.....I've tasted some and it was pretty good, and then some not so good, and I always wondered, did they wash their hands...ewwwww. And you ask if I watched Big Brother....well Yeeaaaah....LOL.....remember I'm addicted.....I sometimes have two things taping on my DVR and I'm watching another thing in my craft room, or bedroom.....such evil people on that big brothers.... that squeeky voice of whats her name almost causes me to turn it off.....but as I said I'm addicted.... judy