Amish Friendship Bread Starter Recipe is the perfect way to begin a friendship tradition. Ten Days ago my friend gave me a Ziploc bag filled with some batter along with an instruction sheet. She told me that I was to keep mashing the bag, add some ingredients and then make bread. I told her if she was my true friend she would just make me the bread (just kidding)!
My sweet friend told me it would be a great thing to blog about——–now I was on board. My husband and I cared for our batter every day and yesterday was the BIG day, I made the bread. It was really delicious and now I have my bags of batter ready to go to three very special friends!
Related: If you are a bread lover try my Pumpkin Bread Recipe.
So I began writing out the recipe and instructions and then realized this does all of you absolutely no good—-you don’t have a starter. But lucky all of you adventurous bakers a quick google search led me to many recipes for the starter.
Beginning the Amish Friendship Bread Starter
It is very important to use plastic or wooden utensils and plastic or glass containers when making this—no metal.
Gather Your Ingredients
Ingredients:
1 pkg. active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (110°F)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1 cup warm milk (110°F)
Directions For Making Your Friendship Bread starter
1. In a small bowl dissolve the yeast in warm water for about 10 minutes. Stir well.
2. In a glass or plastic container, combine 1 cup sifted flour and 1 cup sugar. Mix thoroughly or the flour will get lumpy when you add the milk.
3. Slowly stir in warm milk and the dissolved yeast mixture. Cover the mixture loosely with a lid or plastic wrap. The mixture will get bubbly. Consider this Day 1 of the cycle or the day you receive the starter. I would put this mixture in a ziplock bag so I could continue with the recipe.
For the next 10 days use the starter according to the instructions.
Amish Friendship Bread Starter from momswhothink.
Storage and Additions
Allrecipes has another Amish Friendship Bread Starter recipe with tips about freezing the starter. There are many variations to make Pumpkin Bread, Strawberry Bread, Carrot……….. all shared by momswhothink.
Amish Friendship Bread Starter Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 pkg. active dry yeast
- 1/4 cup warm water 110°F
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 cup warm milk 110°F
Instructions
- In a small bowl dissolve the yeast in warm water for about 10 minutes. Stir well.
- In a glass or plastic container, combine 1 cup sifted flour and 1 cup sugar. Mix thoroughly or the flour will get lumpy when you add the milk.
- Slowly stir in warm milk and the dissolved yeast mixture. Cover the mixture loosely with a lid or plastic wrap. The mixture will get bubbly. Consider this Day 1 of the cycle, or the day you receive the starter. I would put this mixture in a ziplock bag so I could continue with the recipe.
- For the next 10 days use the starter according to the instructions.
Notes
Nutrition
I have created an easy to use free printable on how to use the starter and the recipe for baking the bread. Enjoy! Amish Friendship Bread Recipe and Instructions
More Bread Recipes
- Beer Bread Recipe with only four ingredients and less than an hour, you have delicious homemade bread!
- The BEST Chocolate Chip Banana Bread! it is the perfect solution to overripe bananas.
- Easy Banana Bread Made with Cake Mix Recipe is oh-so moist and delicious and loaded with banana flavor.
- Bread Recipes are for all levels some you make in your bread machine, some are even quick rise recipes.
- Peach Bread Recipe makes a sweet moist delicious treat.
- Sweet Bread Recipes sweet and even sometimes unexpected flavors come together to make your new favorite treat.
- Make Monkey Bread in your Instant Pot cooking it in the pressure cooker makes it so tender and moist.
- Easy Fall Bread Recipes there are so many variations here worth baking.
- Easy Homemade Wheat Bread the hardest part of this recipe is the waiting for it to raise and bake.
If you have a favorite or tips about making this bread please leave a comment!
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In many of the variation recipes it says to replace the vanilla extract/flavoring with another kind. I don’t see vanilla extract in the starter or the basic recipe. Am I missing something?
I haven’t made amish friendship bread in years but froze some of the starter…it’s been in my freezer for probably 3 years…is it still ok to use? I took it out, defrosted it and started the 10 day process….today I’m supposed to bake the bread.
I also tried making my own starter but after a few days it got black dots all over it so I threw it away in case it was mold.
I’m really hoping my “3 year old starter from the freezer” is still good because I’ve been craving this bread!
Thanks!
instead of passing on the starter bags to friends for the amish friendship bread can you freeze it? for how long? and when you take it out of freezer do you start on day 1?
I’ve made so many batches of this that I’ve lost count. My neighbor gave me a starter several weeks ago. My favorite variation thus far is lemon poppy seed. The possibilities are endless once you split the batter. Good to know that the starter can be put in the freezer if you don’t have time to “care” for it.
Becky, could your baking soda be old? I was having a rising issue with cookies and quickbreads recently and bought a new thingy of baking soda and it fixed the problem! 🙂
Your bread came out looking lovely! Nice blog post, thanks!! My sister-in-law just gave me a starter about 2 weeks ago; I made my first 2 loaves and then froze 3 little starters (I don’t have any baking friends living nearby at the moment!).
Krista, who commented on Mar 5, I’m SO glad you said that about the freezing issue – I noticed my 3 little baggies of starter are still very squishy in the freezer, it’s been several days! Crazy! 🙂
I changed the recipe a little for the loaves –
instead of 3 eggs I used 2 egg whites and 1 whole egg
instead of 1 cup oil I used 1 cup unsweetened apple sauce
then I also added 1 large box of instant choc pudding
The only problem is that I added WAY too much cinnamon (a lot more than called for!!) and the bread makes my tongue and gums hurt haha!!! So… next time only the recommended amt of cinnamon for me 🙂
My sister gave me a starter and I made the bread on Sunday. I omitted the cinnamon and added a package of instant lemon pudding instead of the vanilla. Turned out pretty good, but I would suggest either a lemon icing or a teaspoon of lemon extract before baking.
is there a starter that does not require yeast we would like to make our own starter w/out yeast
Metal will only hurt the ph of the starter if it is reactive, like old time utensils tended to be. Cast iron, aluminum, etc are reactive metals. Today’s typical non-reactive stainless steel will do no harm, so chill and enjoy.
As for the yeast of this starter versus the baking powder/baking soda called for: yes, the Amish friendship “bread” is a quick bread. No, the starter doesn’t really help leaven the bread. It is mostly flavor but adds a bit to the leavening, just not enough to rise the bread on its own. The yeast starters used to bake yeast breads without added commercial yeast are a symbiotic marriage of yeast but also bacteria, a marriage most likely absent from Amish starter. The milk gives it some lactobacilli but there is so much else going on with the sugar and such, it really is a completely different picture chemically. It is delicious in its own right but chemically, it is more of a flavor component. Remember too that the flavor variations on a quick bread are inexhaustible. I also have used the starter to make cookies and the absolutely BEST pancakes.
Nevermind – I skipped over to the allrecipes link and read that metal can mess up the yeast and change the pH balance. I’ll just keep my bags and continue on and see how they come out before I give them away…
Ladies – Help – I totally messed up! I am on my second round of bread and stupidly beat the lumps out of my batter with my mixer (metal blades) before separating the four starters. What happens with metal??? Should I just toss them??
My sister in law gave me some starter today along with instructions for passing it along. Okay, here’s what I wonder: the recipe to make up the bread calls for baking powder and baking soda and pudding…. sounds just like a quick bread. If this is a yeast starter, why are those required? Or is the starter just for the flavor? Does anyone know?
I’ve done several ’rounds’ of this. Also, if you only make 2 bags, what is left in the bowl is a ‘double’ recipe, so you can make 4 breads, give them away or freeze them. Then you’ve only got one bag to give and one bag to keep.
You can freeze the starter and just begin where you left off on the day you stopped.
I have 4 starters going right now. No one wants them but they always want me to make them. I send them with my husband to work and with my kids to school (for teachers lounge). They all love it. And I don’t mind making it. It is a fun activity to do with my kids.