Wednesday, January 21, 2009

I broke all the rules but it still turned out




Amish Friendship Chocolate Bread
from the Ugly Binder, from allrecipes.com

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 (5.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup Amish Friendship Bread Starter
1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease two 9x5 inch loaf pans.
In a large mixing bowl, stir together all-purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, chocolate pudding. Make a well in the center of this mixture. Add Amish friendship bread starter, vegetable oil, milk, eggs and vanilla extract; mix well. Pour batter into prepared loaf pans.
Bake in preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean, about 60 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before removing from pan.
_______________________

Someone gave me some Amish Friendship Bread starter right before Christmas. I gave up on it since I was in the midst of so much holiday baking but I was given another batch at the beginning of the year and a second chance. I was dealing with preparation for my son's birthday party then and I almost gave up on the starter again. I fed it late the first time, then I fed it late the second time and I didn't use it right away. I ended up refrigerating it before finally using it (almost two weeks after I was supposed to) so I'm sure if it did what it was supposed to do (having never used the starter properly so I had nothing to compare it to). With baking soda, baking powder and eggs in this recipe, you don't really need the starter but it does add something (I'm just not sure what!)

I thought this was excellent. Very moist and delicious. It makes two loaves and my son ordered me to keep one loaf at home since 'it's so good Mommy'.

Is this actually Amish? Well, the same basic recipe is in an Amish cookbook that I own, The Beverly Lewis Amish Heritage Cookbook, so I think it might be although it surprises me to see the Amish using packaged pudding mix in their baking. Whether it's authentic or not, it's delicious and I can't wait to make more.

Question of the Day: Have you ever made or eaten Amish Friendship Bread? I know I'm late to this party since it's been around forever.

4 comments:

Annie Jones said...

I have several recipes on my blog where I've altered the recipe. My favorite is the lemon version. :)

Anonymous said...

I made these years ago. They were very good, but it just got to be waaay too many and something we didn't need to be eating so much of. I saw an article about that time, that was so funny. It dealt with the problem of the endless cycle of the bread and ended with throwing your starter in a ditch on some secluded country road. LOL! I wish I had the article to read again.

Jan

Bunny_lover said...

I used to make it a lot when we lived near Lancaster. Haven't had any since we moved. I loved it but never had chocolate.

Sara said...

I live near Lancaster, and believe me...the Amish use packaged stuff. : ) When I shop at Aldi on days the vanloads of Amish ladies are there, I've seen their carts full of frozen pizzas and cake mixes in addition to more staple-type foods.

Have had Friendship bread...love it...just shouldn't keep it around. I found this (http://makeitfromscratch.blogspot.com/2009/01/take-control-of-your-amish-friendship.html) and thought it was interesting. Definitely a problem I've had - the polite smile when you hand a friend the starter, "Ooooh...more friendship bread...."