Amish Friendship Bread

Here in Southern Maryland the Amish are literally right down the road.  It is not unusual to pass their horse and buggy on the road or to purchase veggies, baked goods and plants from them at the farmer’s market.  The simplicity of their life somewhat fascinates me,  so when I received a starter kit from my friend to bake an Amish Friendship Bread, I was intrigued. 

I received a ziplock bag with instructions attached.  Basically for the first five days I was just supposed to “Mash the Bag”.  It isn’t until the 5th day that I got to add some flour, sugar and milk.  Did I mention that the batter is not to be refrigerated? EWE! Milk out for 10 days. Yea, I was eeked out about that. I didn’t even want to continue baking it, but hubby was insistant that we would not be the house that breaks the chain of the Amish Friendship Bread. So we continued on…

After five more days of mashing the bag, on the 10th day we added the rest of the ingredients to the batter.  Nothing added was really out of the ordinary when baking a quick bread.  Before baking, I divided the batter into four parts to pass on as starter for others to begin their process.   Which brings me to the second issue I had with the bread…It creeped me out that the batter had been in who knows whose kitchen before passed onto me… that gets another EWE!  Anyway… we continued on, and baked…

 Hubby insisted that it was just the best bread ever.  I think had it just been called “Friendship Bread” instead of “AMISH Friendship Bread” then he wouldn’t have been so wowed. He just wanted to pretend we were Amish for a sec.  Sour milk and other people’s sneezes aside, the bread was ok.  It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad either.  It tasted like your regular run of the mill quick bread batter. If I added bananas it would have been bannana bread, zucchini for zucchini bread… you get the point.

It was good when it was warm and served with butter.  I especially liked that before baking the pan was sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, I think I will remember that tip when I bake my fall breads.  Have you ever tried Amish Friendship Bread? What did you think?