Wednesday, September 5, 2007

won't you be my neighbor


i made amish friendship bread last week and let's just say, i think it helped me make a lot more friends. mmmmm, so yummy! thanks to big pimpin kim for the starter and the recipe. here it is:

this is after someone gives you a start. you can make your own and there are tons of recipes online telling you how to do so. you can freeze the start once it's made if you are not ready to use it.

****do not use any metal! do not use any type of metal spoons or bowls for mixing. do not refrigerate. when air builds up in the bag, let it out. it is normal for batter to raise bubbles and ferment.*****

day 1: do nothing. this is the day you receive the batter. make sure the bag is dated.
day 2: mush the bag
day 3: mush the bag
day 4: mush the bag
day 5: add to the bag: 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of milk, then mush the bag.
day 6: mush the bag
day 7: mush the bag
day 8: mush the bag
day 9: mush the bag
day 10: mix and divide the starter

pour entire contents of the bag into a non-metal bowl, add 1 1/2 cups of flour, 1 1/2 cups of milk, and 1 1/2 cups sugar. mix together. separate mixture into 4 separate gallon ziplock bags and one non-metal mixing bowl (about 1 1/4 cups per portion). keep one ziplock for yourself and give away the other three to friends with a copy of the recipe.

preheat oven to 325 degrees. add to the remaining batter in the mixing bowl.

3 eggs
1 cup oil or 1/2 cup applesauce
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 3/4 - 2 cups flour
1/2 cup milk
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 large box of instant pudding mix (any flavor -- i used chocolate)

**optional: 1 cup of nuts and/or raisins and/or chocolate chips -- i used chocolate chips

grease 2 large loaf pans or you can use pam cooking spray. mix in a small bowl: 1/2 cup sugar and 2 tsp. cinnamon. dust the greased loaf pans with the cinnamon mixture. pour the batter evenly into the 2 greased pans and sprinkle the remaining cinnamon mixture over the batter. bake 55-60 minutes. cool until the bread loosens from the pan (about 10 minutes). Turn out onto serving dish.

**note: if you have time restraint problems with any of the days, just put bag of starter in freezer and resume the day count where you left off when you take it out again.

at the end you get this! so good. however, i did have a hard time taking it out of the pan without all the cinnamon topping coming off, so we just served it straight out of the pan. if anyone has any suggestions for this sort of thing... let me know.

7 comments:

Cindy Bean said...

Oh my gosh, that's an amazing amount of work! I love your food blog. You need to fulfill your bakery dream!

Thanks for the recipe. Just that you made this makes me in awe.

DC United said...

Wow...I'm SO freakin' hungry right now...I think I just licked my monitor. Is that wrong?

carolinesbakeshop said...

cindy, i'm glad we are both internet friends and real life friends now.

and dc, it's not so much wrong as it is well intentioned.

Broek said...

That's a lovely loaf.

I had the friendship bread a few months ago. The eggs and oil were too much but I ended up experimenting and finally made a good loaf. Also, I take issue with the Instant Pudding...do Amish have Instant Pudding. hmnn.

Kelly said...

I actually tried this with lemon pudding and poppy seeds. I never did try the chocolate though kept meaning too. it looks divine.

f*bomb. said...

I always use vanilla pudding, but chocolate seems a good idea- especially if chocolate chips are going to get involved.
And no, Broek, I somehow don't think the Amish would believe in instant pudding. There's probably a lot of churning involved.

I always make them as cupcakes, though. Surprised you didn't think of that, CK. It's assumed that would always be your first choice of shape.

Veeda said...

Someone just introduced to me to this friendship bread today. I feel good to be a friend to anyone who spends 10 days making a treat for me!