Amish Friendship Bread-Banana Muffins

I have had a lot of fun with my Amish Friendship Bread starter. This variation made quick use of some bananas that were in danger of being tossed!
The Ingredients:

1 cup starter
3 eggs
1 cup oil
1/2 cup milk
1 cup sugar
1 cup ripe mashed banana
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
2 cups flour
1 large box instant vanilla pudding mix

Ordinarily, Amish Friendship Bread is baked into two loaves. I decided to make these more appealing to my 4 year old by making muffins. She LOVES muffins!! To make loaves, cook at 325 degrees for one hour. For muffins:
Grease muffin pans and sprinkle them with a mixture of cinnamon and sugar.

I used one jumbo muffin pan

and one mini muffin pan.

Mix ingredients in order and pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake at 325 degrees. Mini muffins took 15 minutes to cook.

Jumbo muffins were done in 30 minutes

Allow muffins to cool for 30 minutes in pan before turning them out onto wire rack to cool completely. Pattie said, "Mommy, call the police cause I'm stealing another muffin in here!" I guess I'll take that to mean she likes them :)
For more fun variations, visit this website.

Amish Friendship Bread-Chocolate Chocolate Chip

Another of the wonderful variations you can use to enhance the basic recipe for Amish Friendship Bread.
The Ingredients:

1 cup Amish bread starter

3 eggs

1 cup oil

1/2 cup milk

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups flour

1 large box instant chocolate pudding mix

2 cups chocolate chips

Mix ingredients together in order. Pour batter into two prepared loaf pans.

Bake at 325 degrees for one hour. Cool in pan for 30 minutes then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Slice.

Enjoy!!

If you are looking for something else, try this website for other variations.

Amish Friendship Bread-Basic Recipe

This is the basic recipe for Amish Friendship bread. It is highly delicious and very hard not to eat within seconds of pulling it from the oven. Try it and you'll see!
The Ingredients:

1 cup starter
3 eggs
1 cup oil
1/2 cup milk
1 cup sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups flour
1 large box instant vanilla pudding mix

Grease two loaf pans and sprinkle with a mix of cinnamon and sugar (I keep a mixture in a shaker for waffles and pancakes and such). This is optional but HIGHLY recommended. Trust me, I have done it both ways and this one sends it to the next level!

Mix ingredients together in order and pour half the batter into each prepared pan. Sprinkle the top with more cinna-sugar.

Bake at 325 degrees for one hour. It won't look quite done, but it is okay! Allow the bread to cool in the pan for at least 30 minutes before removing it. Otherwise you will lose some chunks. In the 30 minutes it will pull away from the sides and then slide right out.

This basic recipe can be altered in too many ways to list! Check out this website for other variations.

Amish Friendship Bread-Starter

I was lucky enough in December to have a friend who offered me some starter for Amish Friendship Bread. I gladly accepted her offer as I remembered with great fondness the delicious bread from a time when my mom had been given a starter. I have found it to be a fun and very easy process that is actually more forgiving that you might think. Notice I used the word "process"? Here's why:
The instructions that you receive with your cup worth of starter list out a ten day script of what you have to do before you can bake anything. I have taken pictures through my starter's journey. Here you go:
DAY 1: The day you receive your starter you don't have to do anything. Make sure that date is written in a place you can easily keep track. I use a sticky note on the lid of my jar.

DAY 2: Stir your starter

You'll see the yeast action grow each day

I just use a chopstick or sometimes just swirl the jar around. Only takes a second!

DAY 3: Stir
DAY 4: Stir
DAY 5: Stir
DAY 6: Feed the starter and move to a larger container.

Add one cup of milk, one cup of sugar and one cup of flour to the starter and mix well.

Then cover lightly again

DAY 7: Stir

See all the pretty bubbles?

Whisk them away!

DAY 8: Stir
DAY 9: Stir
DAY 10: Baking Day!!
Feed your starter again by adding another 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1 1/2 cups flour and 1 1/2 cups milk. Separate out four portions: one for you to bake in 10 days time

and three more to pass along to friends along with a set of instructions.

Now for a few important notices:
Never use any metal when stirring or storing your starter.
There are some recipes that tell you to store your starter in a ziploc-type bag. Then there are some that say not to because it needs to breath. This makes sense to me so I store mine in a mason jar with the lid on but not tightened. Then I use a glass dish with a lid that is not airtight for the second stage.
If you are not able to bake on day 10, put your starter in the freezer. If you just need one more day, the fridge will do but it will bubble up so make sure it is in a big enough container.
I have found a great website for variations and even for the starter itself if you want to start from scratch. The variations I have tried are:
The Basic--delicious and perfect for snacking, breakfast or dessert
Banana--kids loved these, I made it into muffins
Chocolate Chocolate Chip--do you really need me to tell you that this was AMAZING?!
I often bake and put one loaf in the freezer once it is cool. I also have several starters in the freezer because once you have given one to all your friends, what are you supposed to do with them? My plans are to bake a bunch of loaves for Easter. We'll see if that happens. I suppose you could just bake it all up on Day 10 and end up with 10 loaves of bread! Have fun!!

Menu 2/25 - 3/1/2012

Menu time again! I haven't been doing too well at keeping to plan but I didn't think I would the first week. I have planned out this week and am in high hopes of accomplishing the goal :)
Saturday-- Corn dogs and french fries (Clay requested)
Sunday-- Salisbury Steak and mashed potatoes
Monday-- Fish Stick and Mac & Cheese (Pattie requested)
Tuesday-- Tacos
Wednesday-- Chicken Spaghetti
Thursday-- Sloppy Joe Casserole

Coming soon....

Hey there! I am still here, I promise! We have had a big turn in our personal lives here in Chaosville and it has fiddled with my cooking and posting! My husband recently left his job with Target after seven years and has started working for a company based in Houston (which is four hours from here). I say based in Houston because he is currently working a job for them in New Mexico (which is 500 miles from here). With him not being home, cooking isn't as big a deal as the kids most often request tacos, pizza, ramen noodles or mac & cheese when I ask them to contribute to menu planning. *sigh* This first week I am inclined to humor them so we have had Chimichurri Casserole (twice thanks to leftovers), Tuna salad sandwiches (Raley and I)/quesadillas (Clay)/spaghettios (Pattie), and tonight we are having (Clay requested) French Toast and there are tacos on the menu for Friday night.
This weekend I am sitting them down with cookbooks and recipes and we will each pick out a meal and hopefully one or two will be something new I can blog! I have been chronicling an adventure with Amish Friendship bread and after I bake on Saturday I should be able to post the standard recipe plus a variation (or possibly two variations, we will see) so stay tuned for that.

Menu 2/11 - 2/16/2012

Well, I was all excited because we were finally returning to health around here and then...I started coughing again and my throat hurts. Raley started running fever and his throat hurts. So we will see how much of this actually gets made this week! Also, I STILL haven't made the Chicken Ranch Tacos. *sigh* Maybe tonight will be the night!
Saturday-- Frozen pizza (don't judge me!)
Sunday-- I had planned Chicken Spaghetti but now I am not sure. We may stick to leftovers from Friday
Monday-- Chicken Ranch Tacos
Tuesday-- Lasagna Soup
Wednesday-- Breakfast
Thursday-- Chimichurri Casserole
Next week starts our new adventure. Not sure how it will affect the meal planning yet, after all, the kids and I still have to eat. But we won't need so many leftovers and some of Daddy's lesser favorites will appear more often during the times that he is gone. I may get a little lazy but hopefully knowing I will need to keep blogging will help me out of any slumps! Hang in there with me, please?