I just made Amish Friendship Bread yesterday. Some of you may have also gotten a Ziploc baggy from a friend with a liquid which brings back memories of baby formula in it at some point, and if you too were also weak, agreed to follow the instructions and take 10 days and much work to make a pretty simple tasting cake.
I went along with it this time (my first experience with Amish bread was about 8 years ago) because I do like to bake and the lady who gave it to me once picked up my pocketbook for safekeeping after I had rushed out of choir practice in my haste to get to bed. So yes, there was some guilt involved as well.
Anyway, I couldn’t wait to call my father-in-law and tell him that I had in my hands (mushing the bag as directed by the instructions) the starter for Amish Friendship Bread. As I recall, he became somewhat obsessed with the bread (really a cake) the first time it went around our family eight years ago.
Perhaps I am older and wiser now, but I am a bit more critical of the recipe upon closer inspection. The recipe calls for you to make four new starter portions by putting them in Ziploc bags. Ziploc bags? Doesn’t sound real Amish to me. And while we are on the topic, the recipe also calls for one box of vanilla pudding mix. Now, that is where I get really suspicious. Those folks are off without electricity and such, so if they wouldn’t spring for electricity, I don’t see them cutting corners and buying an instant pudding instead of making it the old fashioned way. So, yeah, I made the bread, but not sure about next time. I didn’t keep a starter for myself, but I did give it away.
I think I might google Amish Friendship Bread. The recipe claims that only the Amish know the recipe for the starter, but I bet somewhere out there there is an Amish person who is willing to spill the beans…or instant pudding mix.
Wimmen and Edumucation
4 years ago
2 comments:
I've never heard of Amish Friendship Bread before, but I too am suspicious. It sounds too much like those threatening "lucky" emails that promise you will be punished if you don't forward it to your 50 closest friends. What happens to the "starter" if you let it languish and never use it? What happens to you if you don't spread the bread?
this is a good question...The recipe doesn't say anything like "if you don't make this bread you will grow thick, coarse facial hair, impenetrable by any commercial razor" but if it did I have to say, I would be making Amish bread for the rest of my life, because, you never know...
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