Amish Friendship Bread

This time of year I spend a lot of time alone while Wade works. He is so swamped getting his schools ready for students. He does long days and is exhausted when he gets home. He is spending his Saturday working and I am hanging out with Wookie. This morning I met up with some friends from the group home for breakfast. It had been a while it was fun to catch up. Now I'm home making Amish friendship bread, watching the Olympics, cleaning, and painting trim (project that never seems to end). The bread turned out yummy. I wanted to share the recipe & starter with you. Hope you enjoy it isn't as complicated as it looks. Thanks for my starter Christina it was fun!!!

Amish Friendship Bread Recipes

Starter:
1 tablespoon Active Dry Yeast
2 cups Warm Water — (110 degrees)
1 cup Flour
1 cup Sugar
1 cup Milk

Bread:
1 cup Vegetable Oil
1 cup Sugar
2 cups Flour
3 Eggs
1 small Vanilla Pudding Mix — Instant
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 cup Milk
Cinnamon Sugar:
1 cup Sugar
2 tablespoons Cinnamon

For Amish Friendship Bread Starter:
Dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup of the warm water in a deep glass container. Stir
in remaining warm water, flour and sugar. Beat until smooth. Cover. A large
glass jar or bowl with a tight fitting lid works best for this. Because your
first batch of starter contains fresh yeast, you can skip the next set of
directions and go directly to the instructions for splitting your start.

Do not refrigerate! Do not stir with a metal spoon! The starter requires 10
days for fermentation.

Day 1- Begin or receive starter
Day 2- Stir with wooden spoon
Day 3- Stir with wooden spoon
Day 4- Stir with wooden spoon
Day 5- Add 1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour, 1 cup milk
Day 6- Stir with wooden spoon
Day 7- Stir with wooden spoon
Day 8- Do Nothing
Day 9- Do Nothing
Day 10- Add 1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour, 1 cup milk

Put 1 cup of starter in each of three containers. Give 2 away to friends and
keep one. This will begin their Day 1.

For Amish Friendship Bread

You will have about 1 cup of batter left besides the 1 cup you have saved for
yourself. To the remaining batter add vegetable oil, sugar, flour, baking
powder, baking soda, eggs, milk, vanilla pudding mix, cinnamon, and salt. Beat
until well blended. Add one cup raisins, chocolate chips or nuts, if desired.
Grease 2 loaf pans well, and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, coating bottom well.
Turn batter into pans, and sprinkle remaining cinnamon sugar onto tops of
loaves. Bake at 325 F degrees for one hour.

Note: I put my starters in a plastic baggie Gal size and then squish it instead of having to stir it with a wooden spoon. Important that you don't use anything metal (e.g. metal spoon, bowl, whisk) It causes a chemical reaction with the starter and it will not rise.