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The beginning of the Amish Bread of Friendship is a bit like a chain letter in the form of bread. Except that no one likes chain letters, and everyone loves to bake the Amish friendship. You mix a little yeast, flour, sugar and milk in your kitchen, and after a few days you have enough sweet sourdough garnish to share with friends. It’s about the process as much as the recipe is concerned.
The starter is passed from friend to friend along with the recipe and maybe a fresh loaf of bread, so that a little love that started in your kitchen extends to a friend of a friend and a friend to – a friend of a friend and right on the line. It is a sincere and special gift that shows what good food and home cooking are – sharing the love of our home and our hearts with others.
The process takes ten days, but it is as simple as possible. On the first day, mix some flour, milk, sugar and yeast and leave it at room temperature until it bubbles. You can store the starter in a ziplock bag with instructions written on it directly, or you can mix it in a
bowl and leave it loosely covered. You just want to make sure you use non-metallic utensils and utensils because the sourdough is acidic and can dissolve some metals. On days 2-5, you can simply mash the sachet a little and leave it on the counter.
When the mixture ferments, the bag can fill up with air, so leave it in from time to time so that you don’t enter the kitchen to find a rookie blast.
On the sixth day, feed the appetizers with a little flour, milk and sugar before mashing the bag. Days 7 through 9 are just sachets of puree more. On the tenth day, pour starter into a bowl and mix in more flour, sugar and milk before dividing into one-cup portions in separate gallon bags. You will end up with 4-7 cups of appetizers depending on how active your starter is. You can keep one bag for yourself, and give the other bags to friends.
If you end up with a lot of starter that you just can’t let go of (or if you just want to keep everything to yourself – we don’t blame you), you can freeze it in one cup increments. When it’s time to bake, just take it out of the freezer to thaw and treat the starter as if it was day one. You can bake straight away, or you can continue the ten-day process all over again.
If you want to keep eating, you just need to keep it at room temperature and feed it every five days or so with more flour, sugar and milk. It will last, go, go, and take on a richer flavor as it does. So easy.
Amish Friendship Bread Star is a starter with sweet sourdough that is the gateway to countless cakes, rolls, quick breads, risotto, and muffins – you name it. It has a unique flavor of its own, and we love the process and feel behind it as much as it can create delicious baked goods.
- To prepare this recipe you will need the following ingredients:
° warm water
° Active dry yeast
° All-purpose flour
° Granulated sugar
° Milk
