Amish friendship bread is a type of bread or cake made from a

sourdough starter Sourdough or sourdough bread is a bread made by the fermentation of dough using wild lactobacillaceae and yeast. Lactic acid from fermentation imparts a sour taste and improves keeping qualities. History In the ''Encyclopedia of Food Microbiolo ...

that is often shared in a manner similar to a

chain letter A chain letter is a message that attempts to convince the recipient to make a number of copies and pass them on to a certain number of recipients. The "chain" is an exponentially growing pyramid (a tree graph) that cannot be sustained indefinite ...

. The starter is a substitute for baking yeast and can be used to make many kinds of yeast-based

bread Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour (usually wheat) and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cultures' diet. It is one of the oldest human-made f ...

s, shared with friends, or frozen for future use. The sweet, cake-like Amish cinnamon bread is a common bread that is made from this starter; it is a simple, stirred

quick bread Quick bread is any bread leavened with a chemical leavening agent rather than a biological one like yeast or sourdough starter. An advantage of quick breads is their ability to be prepared quickly and reliably, without requiring the time-consumin ...

that includes a substantial amount of

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or do ...

and

vegetable oil Vegetable oils, or vegetable fats, are oils extracted from seeds or from other parts of fruits. Like animal fats, vegetable fats are ''mixtures'' of triglycerides. Soybean oil, grape seed oil, and cocoa butter are examples of seed oils, or f ...

, with a mild cinnamon flavor. It has characteristics of both

pound cake Pound cake is a type of cake traditionally made with a pound of each of four ingredients: flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. Pound cakes are generally baked in either a loaf pan or a Bundt mold. They are sometimes served either dusted with powd ...

and

coffee cake Coffee cake may refer to a sponge cake flavored with coffee or, in the United States, a sweet cake intended to be eaten with coffee or tea (similar to tea cake). A coffee-flavored cake is typically baked in a circular shape with two layers sep ...

. The flavor of the finished product can be altered by

cinnamon Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus '' Cinnamomum''. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, sweet and savoury dishes, breakf ...

being omitted. A common recipe using this starter suggests using one

cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, cl ...

(240 ml) of it to make bread, keeping one cup to start a new cycle, and giving the remaining three cups to friends. The process of sharing the starter makes it somewhat like a chain letter. One cup of starter makes one standard loaf of bread.

History

There is no reason to think that the sweet, cinnamon-flavored bread has any connection to the Amish people, although the name is taken from them. According to Elizabeth Coblentz, a member of the

Old Order Amish The Amish (; pdc, Amisch; german: link=no, Amische), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsace, Alsatian origins. They are close ...

and the author of the syndicated column "The Amish Cook", true Amish friendship bread is "just sourdough bread that is passed around to the sick and needy". The recipe for Amish cinnamon bread may have first been posted to the Internet in 1990, but the recipe itself is several decades old. Although the origin of Amish friendship bread is up for debate, it is similar to a cake, called Herman friendship cake, which was developed in Europe. Anne Byrn, who researched hundreds of historical recipes for her book ''American Cake'', remembers the friendship bread craze popping up in newspaper columns in the late 1980s, but thinks the recipe can be traced back much further.

Obtaining starter

Starter can easily be created from scratch with a package of regular

baker's yeast Baker's yeast is the common name for the strains of yeast commonly used in baking bread and other bakery products, serving as a leavening agent which causes the bread to rise (expand and become lighter and softer) by converting the fermentabl ...

and the ingredients that are used to maintain it. Also it is possible to create it in a baker's kitchen through natural wild yeasts. Typically, however, a

friend Friendship is a relationship of mutual affection between people. It is a stronger form of interpersonal bond than an "acquaintance" or an "association", such as a classmate, neighbor, coworker, or colleague. In some cultures, the concept of ...

shares a cup of the liquid

yeast Yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom. The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and at least 1,500 species are currently recognized. They are estimated to constit ...

culture with people who would like to make this bread. The starter is typically maintained by adding

flour Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, roots, beans, nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cul ...

and

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modulat ...

every few days, although any source of water and food for the yeast will work.

Controlling the starter cycle

A common cycle is based on the addition of one cup each of sugar, flour, and milk every five days, with bread baked and extra starter shared every tenth day. The ten-day cycle produces five cups of starter, which must be either used to bake bread, given away, or used to start a new cycle. A common suggestion is to bake one loaf of bread, give away three cups of starter, and to save the remaining one for the next cycle. It is not necessary to wait the canonical ten days before using one cup of starter: a cup of starter can be used as a yeast substitute at any point. However, using starter on earlier days will result in a smaller quantity of starter at the end of the cycle. To avoid running out of starter, it is normal to feed the starter (add milk, sugar, and flour) before removing a cup for use, and most recipes assume that starter is always fed immediately before being removed. A five-day baking cycle feeds the starter every fifth day and uses the resulting mixture on that day to bake one or two loaves of bread (one cup per loaf). The remaining starter is reserved to begin the next five-day fermentation cycle. Despite common instructions to the contrary, the starter can be frozen for later use, and the cycle begun anew after thawing. The cycle can also be slowed to about half the normal fermentation rate by refrigerating the starter instead of allowing it to ferment at

room temperature Colloquially, "room temperature" is a range of air temperatures that most people prefer for indoor settings. It feels comfortable to a person when they are wearing typical indoor clothing. Human comfort can extend beyond this range depending on ...

. Refrigeration is usually recommended if a few days' delay is desired.

References

{{Use dmy dates, date=June 2017 Yeast breads Sweet breads American breads Sourdough breads

History

Obtaining starter

Controlling the starter cycle

See also

References