Friendship Bread

About 10 days ago, we were presented with a neighborly gift, the best kind: a bag of goo, a starter for our very own loaf of Amish Friendship Bread. It was an easy recipe. Let it sit the first day. Mash the bag on days 2,3,4,5,7,8, and 9. And on days 6 and 10 you add a few yummy things. Day 10, of course, is baking day.

Here's what we started with:


Now, once this said bag sits and gets mashed for a few days, it ends up, well, bloated, if you will.

That makes mashing, a bit harder.

So, he took to shaking it.


And, when you shake a fermentation-laden bag with all the gusto of what seven years brings, you get this...


and a few tears, I might add. But no worry, because this mama is sure it will work with the starter we have left. Let's keep going.

Alas, day 10 arrives and we add the final ingredients: eggs (we used ener-g egg replacer), oil, milk (we used soy), sugar, cinnamon, vanilla (we were all out, so scraped out the innards of a 1 vanilla bean), baking powder, baking soda, salt, flour, and 1 large box instant vanilla or chocolate pudding mix (we used this one - not instant, but the only one I could find that didn't have a thousand ingredients - somehow I doubt this is the original Amish recipe...do the Amish use instant pudding?)



The friendship bread comes out of the oven, and we are all smiles again.


And we have 4 new starters and he doesn't want to give them all away to friends. Spread the love, I say. Okay, we'll keep one and do it again. We are, after all, friends with ourselves too.