FAQs and Recipe Additions for Amish Friendship Bread
No one has time to browse the 273 comments at my original Amish Friendship Bread post to find answers to their questions, so in an effort to put all my Amish Friendship info into one place, I spent some time yesterday copying and pasting all the best of it into this post. Read on for tantalizingly great recipe additions and helpful feedback, all from the best AFB bakers out there: my readers!
First, answers to the most commonly asked questions. Yes, you can most certainly…
- use non-fat milk or powdered milk
- substitute applesauce for the oil
- use 2 or 3 eggs per batch, your bread will turn out fine, just a different consistency
- use one large box of pudding OR two small boxes or no pudding at all, it doesn’t matter
- use fast-rising yeast–it will not affect the outcome
- use self-rising flour–it will not affect your outcome
- freeze your starter for up to a year (just note which day you were on when you left off, and pick it up at that same point once thawed)
- thaw frozen starter at room temp for three hours before carrying on with recipe
- skip a day of squishing with no problems
- forget to add ingredients or bake EXACTLY on schedule, a day or two off won’t hurt this recipe
- bake it in a 9×13″ pan for 35 minutes
- bake it in a Bundt pan, not sure for this one on baking times so just watch it and use the toothpick test
- bake it as muffins
- bake ALL your starter by simply dividing it equally between 4 bowls then add your ingredients. Each bowl should make 1-2 loaves. Give away the baked bread and good-bye starter!
Reader’s favorite recipe additions/combos:
- White chocolate sugar-free pudding (two small pkgs) with half a bag of white chocolate chips and a cup of dried cranberries
- Sugar-free cheesecake pudding and butterscotch chips
- Lemon pudding with poppyseeds, substituting lemon flavoring for vanilla (minus cinnamon-sugar topping)
- Banana pudding, mashed banana and nuts
- 2 cups fresh cranberries, 1 cup chopped apples, and 1 cup chopped walnuts (2 loaves worth)
- Chocolate pudding and 1/2 cup chocolate chips
- Butterscotch pudding and 1/2 cup butterscotch chips
- Pistachio with walnut (turns out a lovely green color!)
- Pistachio with Marachino cherries
- Cheesecake pudding with cranberry and walnut
- Dried apricots, cherry craisins, and chopped almonds
- Grated carrots, sunflower seeds, and additional spices
- Lemon pudding with either raspberries or white chocolate chips (Lemon w/choc. chips tastes like Vanilla Wafers)
- Blueberries with Cheesecake pudding
- Pumpkin-spice–half a cup pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice, 1/4-1/2 cup grated carrots or raisins
- Savory Amish Friendship Bread - Omit cinnamon and sugar, add about 1 cup cheddar cheese and 3/4 pkg pepperoni, 1/2 flour and 1/2 cornmeal. 1 cup fresh corn. Serve with tomato sauce.
- Make one with half the sugar and add lots of savory herbs, some ground beef and a taco seasoning mix instead of pudding. Great with spaghetti sauce.
Regular or Belgian Waffle recipe (from Erika)
- 2 cups Starter
- about 1 cup flour
- 1/4 cup oil
- 2 eggs
- 2 tbsp. sugar (or less if you prefer less sweet)
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. baking soda
Combine starter with enough flour for your preferred consistency. Add oil, eggs. sugar, salt and baking soda to the starter. Mix thoroughly with wooden or plastic spoon. Let the mixture rest for a little bit, maybe 10 minutes. Cook in your waffle iron. Serve with Syrup. Makes six fluffy Belgian waffles.
Website with recipes for cookies, biscuits, pancakes etc, all using Amish Friendship Bread starter
Mary’s original Amish Friendship Bread starter recipe (with all 273 comments)
Mary’s Easier Amish Friendship Bread recipe
Doesn’t it just make you want to get in on the fun? I’m on Day 6, and have BIG plans for my baking day! Please share your tips/recipe faves in comments!
Comment by Geri
April 13, 2008 @ 9:54 pm
I’m SO glad you posted this Mary! Yesterday and today I have felt a bit better so I’m hoping that I am at the end of this morning sickness. Anyways I have felt well enough to cook dinner both nights (with meat…something that has not happened in a long time since the raw meat made me nauseous) and I can’t wait to try some of these ideas out! I will have to start a batch this week! Thank you!
Comment by Mary
April 14, 2008 @ 4:09 pm
Woo-hoo, I am SO glad to hear you are on the good side of morning sickness, it’s been a rough couple of months, huh!
I had a good friend and mom of 6 call this morning and ask to come have lunch and spend the day, so I went ahead and baked up all but two cups of my AFB starter for us to have as a mid-afternoon treat. It made the equivalent of 4 loaves, though I did two of them in a 9×13″ dish…turned out yummy! Two of the loaves we did the White Chocolate/Cherry (using dried cherries) and the other two we did in the dish using dried blueberries and the cheesecake pudding mix. They were both yummy! And I gave one cup of starter away to my friend and have one left for next week’s baking!
Comment by Geri
April 14, 2008 @ 6:10 pm
I just read your new post and sounds like you all had a wonderful day! Sounds gorgeous out there. The last few days here have been nice (the snow is melting and in the center of our yard we can actually see the grass!) so we have taken LO outside and he just LOVED it. But today was rainy and overcast.
I love the idea of using the start for waffles. Now on Sunday morning when I am craving waffles they are half done for me!
Comment by Julie
April 17, 2008 @ 12:11 pm
That sounds so yummy! I have always wanted to make friendship bread, but was too intimidated. But after reading this, I think I should attempt to make it!
Thanks for taking the time to compile all of this!
Julie’s last blog post..I would think so
Comment by Mary
April 17, 2008 @ 4:12 pm
I know, Geri, I’m craving waffles suddenly! Might have to try that on my next AFB baking day…
Yes, Julie, you should try it, it’s so simple! The only intimidating thing is trying to remember which day to bake, and even that isn’t that big of a deal, to bake a day or two early or late won’t hurt anything.
Comment by Mia
May 4, 2008 @ 11:27 pm
I got a starter kit, I followed all the directions. When it came to the 10th day, I forgot to bake it. I am 3 days late, is it too late? Do i have to start a new kit. If not, when i bake it and add the other ingeridients and separate them, is that consider day one, or three? Help!!!
Comment by Mary
May 6, 2008 @ 8:43 pm
Hi Mia,
I’m sorry it took me so long to see your comment in moderation…all first time posters go in the queue, and my online time lately has been hectic and in a hurry!
I hope you went ahead and baked it, it wouldn’t have mattered…I think I covered that in the above post, I should have! Going three days over isn’t too big of a deal, especially if you continued the squishing of the bag. If it smells “off” or is a pink or orange color, then toss it. When you add the day 10 ingredients and separate and bake, those new starter kits are day 1.
Hths, and again, I apologize!
Mary
Comment by krista
May 16, 2008 @ 11:11 pm
Hello Mary,
I was so happy to find your site. I teach American cooking to Japanese people living here in the States. many of my students return to Japan. I would like to give them a recipe for the Amish bread that does not use the instant pudding. Is there something else? preferably something more natural. Thank you so much!
Comment by Mary
May 17, 2008 @ 7:12 pm
Hi Krista,
Glad you found us here! What a fun job you have…and the answer to your Q is that the instant pudding can be omitted without affecting the outcome. I’ve never left it out, but have had others vouch that it works. Some of the puddings I’ve added haven’t seemed to add much flavor, so who knows, it might be highly overrated!
If you come up with a more natural alternative, let me know, I’ve wondered the same thing. Definitely add fruits (dried fruits or chopped fine–like apples–or mashed bananas) and substitute applesauce for the oil, things like that. You could probably use extracts for additional flavor, but that’s not natural I guess!
HTHs, have fun cooking!
Mary
Comment by krista
May 19, 2008 @ 5:37 pm
Hi Mary,
Thank you for replying. I will try it without the pudding, but add extra vanilla. I’ll let you know how is works.
Cheers!
Krista
Comment by Mary
May 22, 2008 @ 1:41 pm
Good, I’ll be anxious to hear how your students like it!
Comment by Pat Deal
June 14, 2008 @ 8:49 am
my daughter baked her bread about midnight and give me a starter i baked it the next night is that alright to do this???thank you
Comment by Julie
June 15, 2008 @ 2:05 pm
The Amish Friendship Bread is very forgiving. At first I followed directions exactly, but you can’t always be there so I tried leaving it. I have had it on the counter now for about 6 weeks, baking some from time to time, and it’s done fine. Also, I ran out of pudding and tried none and found it adds body and firmness to the bread so it crumbles less.
Comment by Mary
June 15, 2008 @ 2:16 pm
Sure, Pat! In fact, that’s a good way to use it all right up! I’ve often baked the whole batch up and given away the “done deal” rather than the bags of starter. One day early or late doesn’t affect this batter at all.
Thanks for chiming in Julie! I’m glad to know the perks of leaving out the pudding. It’s been a while since I’ve omitted it, admittedly, I just like playing around with the flavors too much, I guess!
Comment by charles
June 18, 2008 @ 1:18 pm
Hello Mary,
I found this site from a google search for applesauce afb and just finished skimming all of the 200+ comments and am feeling a bit dazed! : { Was glad to read that the starter can be frozen for quite a while giving me a lot more freedom to have the bread and starter but not have to keep adding and giving away. I use lots of plastic bags for lunch, and hope to not have to wash more!
One thing I found about the metal utensils point by doing other net searches is that if a metal utensil is used to stir the starter but it is ’stainless steel’, then nothing will happen to the starter. The ’stainless’ part makes it react very little which is why is doesn’t rust or anything like that quickly, so using ss for a bowl or mixing won’t hurt anything. …unless you try to store your starter in a ss container, then something might happen! I just automatically reach for a whisk when I am mixing things up, and used one without thinking both times I’ve added to the starter. Can’t wait to try the variations including the pudding-free… since the pudding makes it stick together better, couldn’t an extra egg or two be used instead of the pudding?
thanks,
charles
Comment by Mary
June 18, 2008 @ 6:38 pm
Hi Charles!
Congratulations for making it through all those hundreds of comments! Lots of info there, huh! I’m always glad to hear how people find my site, so thanks for that tidbit as well!
You know with egg sizes being available in small, medium or large, or even in “beaters”…I’d bet you’re onto something. Even adding a small egg, or amount of “beaters” couldn’t hurt anything. It would be an interesting experiment. According to Julie, it makes a firmer bread to leave out the pudding, so maybe you wouldn’t need to do anything?
That’s great to know about the stainless steel! As you could see, that’s probably the most asked question, and I’ve never used metal utensils so my standard answer is basically what I’d searched out on the net.
So glad you took the time to comment, I appreciate it!
Happy Baking!
Mary
Comment by Janean
July 3, 2008 @ 9:38 am
This bread is wonderful! But I have one problem, I can’t eat it or even sample it, because there’s so much sugar. Can it be substantially reduced or completely substituted with Splenda? My best friend loves it, too, but is concerned with the amount of sugar. She’s not diabetic either.
Comment by Mary
July 3, 2008 @ 11:03 pm
Hi Janean,
Yes, substituting with Splenda makes no difference in the outcome, though Splenda scares me more than sugar, honestly! I haven’t ever tried leaving the sugar out, but there is a natural sweetener that comes in powdered form called Stevia, you might try it. It wouldn’t take near as much though, so the consistency of the bread might be strange. The nice thing, is that with this recipe, you have a lot of starter to experiment with…if you do, please let us know how it turned out!
Wish I was more help,
Mary
Comment by charles
July 4, 2008 @ 4:05 pm
Hello Janean,
I’ve made the recipe using only 1/4 cup of sugar added to the final baked ingredients along with unsweetened apple sauce instead of most of the oil, added two very ripe bananas and the result was still fairly sweet. Pudding has sugar of course… the bread was just fine, probably better than any banana bread I’ve had.
One other thing that you might want to look for and try is a sweetener called xylitol. It is a natural substance made from different plant fibers, can be used and tastes just like sucrose, and I believe it has 40% less calories. If you use a large amount you might have some digestive issues so you need to use a little at a time until your body is adjusted to it. Your dentist may actually have good info on it, or can do a google search. It can’t be used for rising with yeast since the bacteria can’t use it, but then what is good is that the bacteria found in the mouth also can’t use it to grow. I try to stay away from all artificial sweeteners, problem is many now are so strong that they are listed as ‘natural flavor’ in ingredients and you don’t know they are there.
I don’t want this to be an ad for xylitol, but you can use much less sugar in the bread and it has worked well for me.
Comment by Mary
July 5, 2008 @ 8:56 pm
Charles, thanks so much for sharing the above–and I’ve heard good things about xylitol, my aunt really recommends it, so it’s good to hear your testimony to it as well!
This was great info!
Comment by Robin Sanders
July 9, 2008 @ 11:19 pm
I posted this to the main thread earlier as a follow-up to Haley’s comment about making the bread less cake-like.
But it seems appropriate as a response to Janean’s comment about the sugar content.
I add no additional sugar to the baking ingredients—I just add the required sugar for feeding the starter. And I also don’t add any pudding mix. I do add an additional cup of flour (3 cups instead of 2) to help make up for the missing volume. Mine AFB comes out with a texture and taste that’s between a not-too-sweet coffee cake and bread. I also cut the oil down to 2/3 cup.
Robin
Comment by Shawna
July 11, 2008 @ 8:04 pm
Have you ever tried the recipe with stawberry/banana applesauce and diced strawberries and bananas mixed in? I used vanilla pudding still too, my girls ate it with gusto! Also thank you so very much for the starter recipe, I have been looking for one for awhile! My husband sure misses AFB!!
Comment by Mary
July 15, 2008 @ 5:02 pm
That sounds delicious!! I’ve not tried that combo, but I’ve made strawberry bread before, and it’s wonderful…so the two together would be great!
Thanks, Shawna! I’m glad the site helped you too!