Amish Friendship Bread

 
A few weeks ago, my friend Alison gave me a bag of Amish Friendship Bread batter.  It came with some instructions on how to take care of it every day.  I have never had a pet quite like this one.  Usually, i don't get to eat it after i grow it.

You give the thing a nice massage every day (mush it well) so that the heat of your hands and the movement (or agitation, as we learned in high school chem) activates the active yeast that makes it bubble and ferment. 

What a strange pet.  On the 6th day of the ten day cycle, you have to feed it a cup each of milk, flour, and sugar.  By day 9, your gallon bag is like a giant balloon of air, and you literally have to burp it by releasing the air from the bag.  I'll get a picture of that sometime...it's pretty funny.  And oh my goodness, the batter gets pretty darn stinky.  I mean, all things do when they ferment, but still. 

But okay, enough talk about batter burps...here it is on the 10th day.  The day it gets baked.

Before you bake it, you put it in a non-metal bowl (sorry Stella, not a job for you) and add some more milk, flour, and sugar to it. 

Then you beat it like crazy.

Then you measure out four 1-cup rations of batter and put them into baggies. 

Then you give the baggie to your friend along with a copy of the instructions so they can start the whole process all over again.

Isn't that such a fun concept? 

Though, being in grad school, i'm not surrounded by too many people who bake on a regular basis, so I tweaked the recipe a bit so you only harvest 2 cups/bags of batter.  I keep one, then give the other away.  That slows down the rate of Friendship Bread growth.  You really don't want your Friendship to get out of control. 

Okay, so then after harvesting, I put in the rest of the ingredients, my favorite of which is this large packet of Jell-O Vanilla Pudding.

This will make you seriously wonder why all cake batters do not have "pudding in the mix", because it makes it so delicious and moist. 

Okay, so after putting in the rest of the ingredients, you pour it into 2 loaf pans or a bundt pan.  I used my angel food pan because I don't get any use out of this thing, ever.  How often does one bake angel food cake?  Seriously, SP, when it comes to baking supplies, you don't think, you just buy. 

Okay, so this takes an hour to bake.  This is enough time to read an article for your dissertation if you really focus.  DO IT. 

Fast forward to 1 hour later.  Voila!

How lovely does THAT look?

You won't believe how good this smells.  I love breads that are based on fermentation, kinda like beer bread.  It's so darn good.

Okay, let's get this baby out of here!

And let's take out the middle and cut out a section, just to see how my pet cooked up.

Oh help.

Stop this ridiculous insanity.  Why why why.

The bread is moist (and stays moist for days!) and soft and absolutely heavenly.  And with coffee in the morning, it will make you want to cry. 

But for a person like me, the best part about it is, if you keep a baby for yourself, you can bake every 10 days, AND that allows you a chance to mess with the recipe, which is what I did to make it a little less sweet and have less fat.  I eliminated the cinnamon-sugar sprinkling that's supposed to go on top, and kept it more of a pure, delicate bread instead.  I love messing with recipes to make them healthier :)

Have a wonderful weekend!  Special thanks to all of you who became a fan of Sunny-side Up Recipes this past week!  If you're so inclined, suggest the page to your friends and spread the sunshine!