Amish Friendship Bread Starter

Back in January, I posted about my experience with the Amish Friendship Bread Experiment. While doing research, I read that supposedly the recipe for the starter is a secret and only the Amish know it.

Fast forward to yesterday. I was looking through our books and found Loaves of Fun: A History of Bread with Activities and Recipes from Around the World by Elizabeth M. Harbison and John Harbison. What should I discover?

Why - a recipe for Amish Friendship Bread Starter! Guess it's not so secret afterall. And now I'm going to share it with you.

~ Amish Friendship Bread Starter ~

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

1 cup milk

pinch of yeast (optional)

Combine the ingredients in a plastic bowl. The yeast is optional, but it can make things get going more quickly. Let the mixture sit uncovered overnight.

My starter (or as this book refers to it - starter sponge) was given to me in a Ziploc bag, but you can also use plastic containers. It doesn't say anything about putting a cover on it or not, but I'm assuming that since my Ziploc bag was kept sealed and still worked just fine, a covered plastic container would also work.

Here is the care and feeding schedule for your starter and what you would copy to give away:

Day 1 - Do nothing.

Day 2 - Do nothing.

Day 3 - Stir with a wooden spoon.

Day 4 - Do nothing.

Day 5 - Do nothing.

Day 6 - Add 1 cup milk, 1 cup sugar, and 1 cup flour. Stir. The lumps will dissolve, so don't worry about them.

Day 7 - Do nothing.

Day 8 - Stir with a wooden spoon.

Day 9 - Do nothing.

Day 10 - Add 1 cup milk, 1 cup sugar, and 1 cup flour. Stir. Put 1 cup of the mixture into three different plastic containers. Keep one as your new starter, and give the other two away. There should be some left in the bowl - that's what you make the Amish Friendship Bread with right away.

If you've read my previous post about Amish Friendship Bread, you probably have guessed that I won't be running out to make my own starter. But, I thought there might be others out there who would like the recipe. If you end up making some, I would love to hear about your experience with it.