Amish Friendship Bread: Skipping the Ziploc bag.
I’d never heard of Amish Friendship Bread, apparently the chain letter of baking, before receiving this bag of starter from my co-worker Jo Anne last week. For those of you who are as ignorant as I was, it’s a yeast starter that each person nurtures and “feeds” (adding flour, sugar, and milk on days 6 and 10) for 10 days, then, after quadrupling the original amount, divides it up, making bread with one part and passing the remaining three to friends who will repeat the process (and hopefully not give it right back to you.)
The thing is, the starter recipe that’s been circulating through my office requires that each portion be placed in its own Ziploc bag. Each day, the starter is kneaded through the bag until day 10. But certainly the Amish people (if they are indeed the ones who came up with this recipe… that fact is apparently in doubt according to a few Internet sources) wouldn’t have started out using plastic bags. I decided to find out the truth.
And the truth is that you can use any kind of non-metal container and instead of kneading, stir the starter with a wooden spoon. Great! I accepted the mission and that night, emptied the plastic bag into a glass bowl. Jo Anne has kindly agreed to take back the plastic bag to reuse.
This bowl doesn’t have a lid, so I used a ceramic plate on top to keep it covered, and every day stirred it up. Monday night, I made the bread (which is actually more like a heavy, rich cake) and it rocks. I’ll give my recipe below, which contains almost all ingredients bought from bulk bins without any disposable packaging. And as you can see, the remaining portions are in re-used glass jars instead of plastic bags. The lids are, of course, metal. But I think that’s okay as long as the jars remain upright.
Oh, and one other little cheat: if you can’t find friends to give it to on day 10, don’t worry. Apparently, you can actually refrigerate or even freeze the starter to slow or halt the growth process. Supposedly it will start right up again once the starter thaws out. Anyone else have experience with this?
So, here are the directions as I have adjusted them to eliminate plastic. I have two takers for my starter. I need one more. Anyone else in the SF Bay Area who wants it? Please come take my little yeastie boyz!
Amish Friendship Bread
Check with the person who gives you the starter to find out what day they are giving it to you, if it’s not Day 1. Begin where they left off.
Day 1: Do nothing with the starter.
Days 2-5: Stir with a wooden spoon.
Day 6: Add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, and 1 cup milk. (I used whole wheat flour and nonfat milk, simply because those are what I had in the house.) Stir with a wooden spoon.
Days 7-9: Stir with a wooden spoon.
Day 10: Add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Stir. Take out 3 cups and place 1 cup each into three separate non-metal containers. Give one cup and a copy of this recipe to three friends.
Making the bread:
To the balance (a little over one cup) of the batter, add the following ingredients and mix well.
2/3 cup oil (Believe it or not, I used olive oil because it was the only kind of oil we had and I didn’t want to go shopping.)
3 eggs
2 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon (I did not add cinnamon because I don’t like it that much. I did, however, add granola and chocolate chips. Per note below, you can add pretty much anything you want.)
1 cup sugar
Preheat oven to 350°F.
In mixing bowl, combine all ingredients.
Grease and flour well 2 9″x5″ bread pans. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes. (I actually used one bread pan and baked for 55 minutes at a lower temp.)
Variations: Add 1/2 cup of one or more of the following – raisins, chopped apples, crushed pineapple, candied fruit, coconut, chopped dates, nuts or chocolate chips. Add to batter just before baking.
The possibilities are endless. Maybe I’ll keep the remaining batch of starter for myself and make more.
yes i often freeze my starter if i don’t have friends who want one or just am not ready to start again usualy though i will pull my bag or bowel out in the evening and start my first day the next morning after it has had plenty of time to thaw and get back to room temp idk if this makes a differance but it what i always do
I agree about the plastic, the first time I had this starter it was in a tub. now I recieved it in a ziplock. thank you to all who knew a little more than I. I have some bread in the oven. my husband loves the choc. bread.. now I donot have to buy it.
In answer to why you shouldn’t use metal utensils or bowls: According to my husband who has his bachelor’s degree in Biology, the metal can “kill” the yeast in a sourdough-type starter. I didn’t care to know anymore than that. My mother used to make this bread quite a bit when I was young, and 30 years later I get a starter from one of my co-workers. To adjust the amount of starters you end up giving out, adjust the recipe up or down by 1/2 cup increments on the flour, milk and sugar for the day 10 additions before you mix and dole out new starters. For example, if you want to keep one and give out 4 starters, you would add 2 cups of each. If you just want to keep one for yourself, just add a 1/2 cup each.
I have successfully frozen starter and used it. If you are truly worried about the metal on the lid of the jar interfering with the starter, use a piece of waxed paper or parchment paper and place it on top of the jar, then screw down the lid. That should keep the starter from touching the metal of the lid. I’d much rather have a lovely crock to keep my starter in than the plastic baggie I got it in, and I’m glad to see other people are doing something like that.
-Vicky
Last month I found myself at work, saying “Thankyou” to a co-worker who had handed me a ziplock bag of goop, and a recipe sheet. So I followed all directions until it came to the last group. I do not care too much for cinnamon, so after a bit of thought I decided to change out a few things. I left out the cinnamon, kept all else the same, but added a tsp. of Almond flavoring, and 1/3 cup poppyseeds. (Almond Poppyseed muffins seem to have gone extinct in my area and I miss them). Instead of a loaf pan or sheet pan, I used cupcake papers and muffin tins and OH MY . . . 35 muffins later I was done. It only took 25 min to bake two tins full at a time. They were wonderful!
Warning though. The papers seem to leech oil out of the little flat-topped muffins, by day 2. Next time I will not use the papers, and will dust each with either flour or sugar, I have yet to decide. I was not sure how changing things would turn out, but I always figure, “Nothing ventured – nothing gained”. Outside of work, I have no friends to give it to, and work is flooded with starters from my co-worker. So as sad and hard as it seems … you can just Throw-away the extra batters, and keep just the one cup for yourself. Its a simple easy solution. I was very glad to see posted here that keeping it frozen is possible, and that I can use something besides the plastic container. My husband is the cook and kitchen keeper in the family and that plastic bag has been giving him “fits”. He likes his counters the way he likes his counters, without that bag!
A last coment: I actually took the time to measure the remaining amount that is left after taking out the “give aways” It came to almost exactly 1-3/4 cups of the starter.
Thank you for having this wonderful site. It answered every question I had about using and storing the starter.
hey! thanks everyone for all your information!! It really helped me understand the process. I recieved a AFB from a lady at work, with no real understanding of it (other than the instructions). Also, she gave it to me on like day 7….judging by what you all have said…I’m just going to act like today is my day 2 (got the starter yesterday). Also, she gave me a little sample of her baked AFB along w/ the starter, so I knew what I was making (I thought that was a good idea, seems I had never even heard of it before!). YUM, it was awesome! Can’t wait to bake mine!! 🙂
im really confused with whether to refrigerate it or not thru the 10 days. some people do and some dont. i think the yeast needs the room temp to ferment and grow but it seems bad to not keep it in the refrigerator for so long. ive made the bread once after having kept it in the fridge. it didnt raise much but tasted good. im wondering if thats because i did not keep it at romm temp?
Hi Gail. You do need to keep it warmer. And you don’t need to worry about it going “bad.” You want the bacteria to grow. They are good bacteria. If you refrigerate them, they won’t grow and your bread won’t really rise the way it should. Cooling the batter is a way to slow down the process.
On day ten, instead of adding 1.5 cups of milk, sugar, and flour, add only 3/8 cups of each. Do not measure out three one cup amounts for other bags. Continue the recipe as stated and voila! You have made the bread without extra starter.
I use up the extra bags this way and when I get down to one bag I then make the extra starters and freeze them until I am ready to use them.
Hi Chris. As far as I know, starter never goes bad. Fermenting is a bacterial action. As long as you follow the directions, you can have starter that lasts for years and years. That’s the fun of it.
Hi Shandy. It’s fine to bake it in a metal pan. That’s what I used.
Hi Vic. I too received a recipe that included pudding mix. I try not to use pudding mixes, opting for ingredients I can purchase from bulk bins using my own containers to avoid packaging waste. Also, who knows what chemicals are in pudding mix these days.
Thanks for stopping by! It’s nice to get back the original way things were done before the “convenience” of plastic packaging.
Hi Anonymous. The sugar is “food” for the yeast. You could probably omit the last bit of sugar from the part that you are using to make your bread, but you do need to keep feeding sugar to the starter to grow the yeast.
Fruit is not required. None of the “variations” ingredients are required. That’s why they are under “variations.” They are just options.
But also, please note that this “bread” is more like cake. You’re not going to get the kind of bread we normally think of for sandwiches, although I don’t know why you couldn’t eat it with tuna. It would just be an interesting experience.