Judging from the name, I figured it was probably plain basic white bread. But as I peeled away the foil and sampled a piece, I was stunned by the unconventional deliciousness that met my lips.
Amish Friendship Bread is a cinnamonny sweet bread, kind of like a banana nut bread except without the banana and nuts and much more delicious. It is simple in its looks - light coffee-colored crumb flecked with cinnamon - but the flavor is complex, full of depth, the kind of bread that encapsulates sin and redemption all in one bite!
I immediately wanted to know the recipe. And therein lies the rub.
The Amish Friendship Bread is made with a starter made of milk, sugar, flour, and I suppose whatever is in the air. I have worked with sourdough starters before and it is true that they require some degree of care and concern, but not much. A sourdough starter needs to be fed but can survive periods of dormancy. For example, legend has it that Dick Proenekke's historic sourdough starter sat dormant for ten years before the caretakers of his cabin poured off "the sludge" and started using it for hotcakes again. My own starters have started looking upset with me... maybe I should feed them soon....
As much trouble as it is caring for a sourdough starter, it is nothing compared to having a high-maintenance Amish Friendship Starter. This starter has a 10-day cycle which requires feeding, massaging, and abstention from metal utensils. (I have yet to figure out if this is just an Amish quirk or something about reactive metals.) I half expect the starter to ask me to take it on buggy rides in the countryside.
The recipe is as follows:
Amish Friendship Bread
DO NOT REFRIGERATE. IF AIR GETS INTO THE BAG, LET IT OUT & RE-SEAL.
Day 1: Do nothing.
Day 2-5: Mush the bag.
Day 6: Add 1 c sugar, 1 c flour, 1 c milk to the bag.
Days 7-9: Mush the bag.
Day 10: Follow directions below.
1. Poor entire contents of bag into non-metal bowl & use non-metal spoon. Add 1.5 c flour, 1.5 c sugar, 1.5 c milk. Stir until smooth.
2. Measure out 4 equal batters into ziploc bags -- 1 c each. These are your new starters. Keep them, give them away, or toss them.
3. Take what's left of the batter after removing the starters and add:
3 eggs4. Grease 2 large loaf pans.
1 c oil
1/2 c milk
1 c sugar
2 c flour
1.5 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 t baking soda
2 t cinnamon
1 large box of instant pudding
1 c chopped nuts, raisins, etc. [OPTIONAL]
5. Mix 1/2 c sugar and 1.5 t cinnamon. Sprinkle some of this mixture into the greased pans. Pour batter into pans and sprinkle remaining cinnamon sugar on top.
6. Bake at 325F for 1 hour.
Although the Amish are not proud, their starter is not so modest. Through feedings, it propogates exponentially like a pack of rabbits.
As I read the instructions for splitting the batter into four new starters, I couldn't help but be reminded of my mother's brief foray into Amway. I was only about ten when she joined Amway, but to this day, I still feel the effects of this decision (and not just in the sub-par laundry soap from the 80s that still stocks the shelves in our laundry room). The business propagated, it seemed to me, mostly by tricking your friends into joining and making them buy products. Amway was a transformative experience for my mother. Prior to Amway, in home movies, my mother was a soft-spoken woman. I can't say the same today.
It was not until college, in Sociology 101, that someone drew a scholarly link between the socialization tactics of cults and Amway. Thrown into the mix in that chapter were Mormons, the Moonies, and if anyone had known about the Amish Friendship bread, perhaps the Amish would have gotten a few paragraphs.
For anyone who seriously cooks in a kitchen, waste is an enemy. All food has the potential of providing nourishment, so it makes little sense to throw things away. The Amish should know better; I cannot possibly throw away perfectly good starter that has been lovingly fed milk, sugar, and flour! There are starving people in Africa who would kill for a spoonful of that Amish Friendship. Under these circumstances, there's only one thing left to do, what any good Amway distributor would do: get your friends involved.
As I thought about who among my unsuspecting friends could be burdened with a high-maintenance starter, I began to see the recipe for what it truly is.
An Amish Pyramid Scheme.
The whole recipe seemed a bit suspicious to me. One large box of instant pudding? How can instant pudding be Amish? Isn't that the baking equivalent of a proud zipper? Were it not for the divine crumb on this bread, I would throw in the towel and throw out the starter. But salvation is not an easy road!
With respect to the recipe itself, it is fairly straightforward. The splitting of batters into starters should leave you about 1-2 cups of batter to start your own batch of bread. The admonition against metal utensils was frustrating as Kitchenaid Mixmaster Thor could have made this bread quickly, with his eyes closed. Instead, I had to do it, first with a wooden spoon which didn't feel like it was getting enough beating done. Deciding that there was no sense in denying my heritage, I reached for a pair of wooden chopsticks, which coincidentally was what my mother first gave me to use to make cake batter when I was kid. (Thank you, Mom, I suppose, for this Lesson in Patience.)
Other things to note: The amount of cinnamon sugar topping called for by the recipe is a little too much to sprinkle evenly over two loaves, and the extra sugar ends up making the bread dusty. A nice even layer will brown and crisp the top of your bread. I ended up using two silicone pans, which seemed to work well enough.
By the time I got these two loaves into the oven, it was already past 9pm which is usually my cut-off for turning on any heat-producing devices in the kitchen, having learned the hard way that a sleepy Madwoman makes for some irregular and catastrophic baking. High maintenance and late hour aside, the Friendship Bread, true to its name, made the recipe worth it.
Here it is, lying in a lovely (and coincidentally Amish) basket I bought at a local crafts show last month:
And if that isn't Holy Redemption In a Basket, I don't know what is.
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