What to do with Friendship Bread Starter

I am going to leave off the "Amish" part of the title, because my understanding is that it had nothing to do with the Amish. Regardless "Friendship Bread" and the starters that are passed along to friends, have been around for a long time. This is my third go-round with it, my first being back in the 1980s, when it was called a "Herman" Starter. 

Butterscotch & Caramel Friendship Bread

The second time I worked with this Friendship Bread Starter was about 4 or 5 years ago, when I was visiting my sister Barb, in Tucson. She had a starter going and was making the breads and coffee cakes repeatedly. She has a family with a lot of friends and extended families, and always has someone visiting at meals. Since my only experience prior to this was back in the 1980s, I really had little recollection of what I had done with the Herman starter, so Barb's breads were a revelation. Moist and delicious and with varying flavors as she would switch out the instant pudding flavors and other additions. The basic bread recipe calls for 1 or 2 vanilla instant pudding mixes to be added, along with cinnamon. Barb varied this, at times using Butterscotch instant pudding and nuts, or pistachio instant pudding and adding pistachios. Dates or other dried fruits can be added, and the spice does not always have to be cinnamon (though everyone loves cinnamon).

About a week and a half ago, while  helping out at The Granary, at the Dacotah Prairie Museum's Fall History Festival, someone brought in a few bags of Friendship Bread Starter (I'll call it FBS, from here on out), with the instructions for feeding and making the bread. It had been a while since last making and working with the FBS, so I took one of the starters and the instructions, eager to come home and see how they compared with Barb's recipes. 

While Barb originally got her recipe online, she made some small adjustments, in order to avoid constantly looking for someone new and unsuspecting on whom to foist a FBS. This is a great way to find all your friends are now unavailable! On Day 10, when adding in the last starter ingredients, prior to dividing the starter into "one cup for bread, one cup to keep and 2 or 3 cups to give away," she added in an extra half cup of the milk, sugar and flour. What Barb did then was use 2 cups of starter per loaf, where most recipes call for only one cup per loaf. She made two bread recipes, using 4 total cups of the starter, making 4 loaves, thereby leaving only 1 cup of starter to begin the cycle again for herself. Freezing the spare loaves was one way to keep the loaves, and the other is to give them away - a much more palatable option than gifting the starter, for most people.

 

Pistachio pudding, flavoring and nuts in Friendship Bread

What Else Can I do With my FBS?

All that aside, if you are interested in making the Friendship Bread, or Herman Bread, making the starter at home is simple enough: yeast, flour, sugar and milk. The recipes abound on the internet. I wondered though: 

1. Can the Starter be made gluten-free?
2. The breads and coffee cakes are so sweet; is there anything savory possible with this FBS?

Yesterday while visiting at the Dacotah Prairie Museum, I asked Marianne, who is gluten intolerant, if she knew if the FBS could be made gluten free? She had no idea. Okay, I had planned to go online and look anyway. This morning I first went online to search for Herman Bread. While no place I looked seems to equate the Herman starter with the "Amish" FBS, for all intents and purposes, it is the same thing. When I looked up "Herman Bread Starter or Amish Friendship Bread", I came to a site called Friendship Bread Kitchen, exclusively dedicated to all things Friendship Bread related. While perusing the site, comparing Barb's recipes and seeing what differences there were, I found a whole section on making the starter and the breads gluten-free!

I am not gluten intolerant myself, though I know people who are. Marianne at the Dacotah Prairie Museum is one of them, so when baking something to take there, if it is made with anything gluten, she cannot taste it. As a cook and baker, I love so much to give food to people. When someone cannot even try it, I feel bad. When making things to take to the Museum, I try to always keep that in mind and make all or at least some things gluten free where possible. For this reason, I try and keep this concept in mind. I keep a variety of GF flours and all-purpose GF flour blends on hand, just so I can experiment. I know my kitchen is not a totally GF kitchen, so if baking for others this must be kept in mind. A very gluten intolerant person would likely have difficulties with my foods, even though I try to be careful. Thankfully Marianne is not so extreme and can try the things I make.

As to the third part of that question, about making savory foods with FBS, this is also covered on the same site noted above. I want to take the time to peruse the recipes at leisure, but just at a quick glance I found two things I want to try; some Cheesy Dill Rolls and Cornbread. There are others. LOTS of others on that site. Once I begin experimenting, other ideas will come, and that's my plan. 

For now, in an effort to try and lessen the amount of sugar and oil, I used Barb's 1/2 cup applesauce and ½ cup oil, rather than a full cup of oil per FB Recipe. The starter itself is terribly sweet already, so I also lessened the full cup of sugar to ¾ cup, though I believe it might be possible to bring that down to ⅔ cup or even a half cup. I will be experimenting with that also. 

Friendship Bread Starter

1 packet active dry yeast
¼ cup lukewarm water
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1 cup milk

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water in a small bowl. While yeast is activating, whisk together the sugar and flour in a non-metal bowl (glass or plastic). Add in the milk and the yeast and stir together with a wooden or plastic spoon. No metal utensils should touch the starter. Place this mixture into a gallon sized zip top bag and seal it closed. Mark the bag with the date and leave it on the counter at room temperature.
 
On days 2, 3 and 4, mash the bag around a bit. If the bag becomes very bloated, let the air out and re-seal.

On day 5, mix together and add to the bag:
1 cup sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup milk

Mash the bag around well, then leave it on the counter for days 6, 7, 8 and 9.

On day 10, pour the mixture into a large glass or plastic bowl. Add in:
1½ cups sugar
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1½ cups milk

Stir well, then remove 1 cup of the mixture to a new gallon sized zip top bag, mark with the date, seal and set aside.

Measure out 2 cups of the remaining starter to make Friendship Bread. There should be about 2 cups remaining in the bowl. Use the next 2 cups to make a second batch of Friendship Bread, thereby using the whole amount, or divide the remainder into 2 gallon sized zip top bags and give these away to two others, along with the instructions.

Friendship Bread (and Variations)

Makes 2 loaves (make 2 recipes to use all the starter)

My Pistachio-Pistachio Loaves, fresh from the oven

2 cups Friendship Bread Starter
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup unsweetened applesauce (snack cup size)
¾ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs
½ cup milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon cinnamon, optional, depending on flavor profile
2 (3.5 oz) packets vanilla instant pudding mix, (change instant pudding flavor for variation
1 cup nuts of choice, optional
½ cup raisins, dates or other dried fruit, optional
----------------
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Combine the last 2 ingredients in a small bowl. Grease or spray with cooking spray 2 large loaf pans. Use the sugar/cinnamon mixture to "dust" the loaf pans. Reserve any leftover to sprinkle on top later.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees (300 on Convection Bake).

In a bowl, combine and whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and instant puddings. In a separate bowl, stir together the Friendship Bread Starter, oil, applesauce, sugar, vanilla, eggs and milk until well combined. Add in the dry ingredients and mix well. Add nuts or dried fruit if using. Divide the batter between the two prepared loaf pans. Sprinkle any remaining sugar ad cinnamon mixture (from dusting the pans) over top. Bake for about 1 hour, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in pans 10 minutes before turning out.

My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

Revisiting a Past Recipe

Last year's Lavender Nut Tea Loaf, in pieces

Nearly one year ago, I created a recipe for a dessert loaf I called Lavender Nut Tea Loaf. I had an idea and put it together, baked it. It smelled heavenly. It ended up tasting sublime. The part in between was the rub. Trying to take it out of the loaf pan was a complete and total disaster. It came out in bits and pieces, as it stuck to the pan.

All these bits and pieces were eaten, but there was no way to take a lovely photo of any of it, as it just broke up so completely. I titled that blog "Triumph and Failure Hand in Hand." Today I was thinking about that recipe and decided to take another look. Believe me, I have thought of it many times over this past year, but only today it seemed I had both the inclination and the time to revisit this recipe.

Thinking back, I was of the impression I had used yellow summer squash in the recipe, but that was incorrect. Today I did have some little patty-pan squash on the counter, so in making a revision of the recipe, and I did add some of those. Other things I decided to change were lowering sugar content as well as fat content. I skipped eggs completely and used flax meal and water as an egg-substitute (soak for 10 minutes - 1 tablespoon of flax meal with 3 tablespoons water to equal 1 egg). I used applesauce instead of some of the fat. I kept the same amount of lavender flowers in the recipe since these were the main flavor component.

Today's loaf, perfect and whole

In the past, using gluten free flours has seemed to result in a more moist bread, so I went that route. I found, when breaking out the calories, carbs and all those other nutritional considerations, that gluten free flours are far higher in carbs than regular all-purpose flour. Oh well. I used some of the recipe mix for a gluten free flour of: 6 cups brown rice flour, 2 cups potato starch and 1 cup tapioca starch  as the flour in the recipe. To the 2 cups worth of this flour blend used for the loaf, I added ½ teaspoon of guar gum.

When mixing up the final recipe, I completely forgot to add in the nuts. I intended to use ¾ cup, just as in last year's recipe. Instead, I lowered the amount, since the batter was already in the loaf pan, and just lightly chopped and pressed them onto the top of the batter before baking. The bread rose beautifully and baked in about 48 minutes. It is still cooling in the kitchen, so I have yet to see how this comes out of the pan. I did spray the pan with cooking spray and then used one narrow piece of parchment to line the pan across the bottom and long sides. I pray this will be enough to release the loaf. I will find out shortly. Here is my revised recipe, gluten and egg-free.

Lavender Nut Tea Loaf II

Makes one (8 x 4-inch) loaf

Lavender Nut Tea Loaf II

3 tablespoons (0.18 oz. / 5 g) dried lavender flowers
¾ cup (6 fl. oz. / 180 ml.) 1% buttermilk
2 tablespoons (0.50 oz. / 14 g.) golden flax meal
6 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon cooking oil
1½ cup yellow summer squash, grated
½ cup (4 oz. / 113 g) unsweetened applesauce
½ cup (3.67 oz. / 104 g.) sugar
1½ teaspoon vanilla extract
4 packets Sweet Leaf Stevia
2 cups (4.70 oz. / 132 g.) gluten free all-purpose flour mix
1 teaspoon (0.14 oz. / 4 g.) baking powder
1 teaspoon (0.18 oz. / 5 g.) baking soda
½ teaspoon (0.07 oz. / 2 g.) guar gum
½ teaspoon (0.11 oz. / 3 g.) salt
½ cup (1.85 oz. / 51 g.) walnuts or pecans

Spray an 8 x 4-inch loaf pan with cooking spray. Line the pan with parchment, at least one way. Spray the parchment. Set pan aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (325 on Convection Bake).

Set the lavender flowers in the buttermilk to soak for at least 15 minutes. Set the flax meal into the 6 tablespoons of water to soak for at least 10 minutes.

In a mixing bowl, combine the grated squash with the cooking oil, applesauce, sugar, vanilla and stevia packets. Set aside.

In another bowl, whisk or sift together the gluten free flour mixture with the baking soda, baking powder, guar gum and salt. Set aside.

To the squash mixture, add in the buttermilk and lavender mixture with the soaked flax meal and all its liquid. Stir well to combine. Add in the dry ingredients, stirring until all the ingredients are well moistened. You do not have to worry about over beating with gluten free flours. Either add in the nuts to the batter and mix, or pour the batter into the pan and place the nuts on top. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out with barely a crumb or two. Allow the loaf to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before turning out to cool completely on a rack before slicing.
Based on 12 slices, each slice contains: 225 calories, 3.5 g protein, 4.6 g fat, 1 mg cholesterol, 
42.5 g carbs, 2.5 g fiber, 42 mg potassium and 256.5 mg sodium.

To make this recipe vegan as well as gluten free and egg free, substitute a nut or seed milk for the buttermilk, reduce the baking soda to ½ teaspoon and increase the baking powder to 1½ teaspoons. If nut allergies are a problem, simply leave out the nuts.
 

Lavender Nut Tea Loaf II, perfect and whole

The Verdict?

The loaf came out of the pan with great ease, even leaving the parchment behind in the pan. The ends did not stick at all. I believe this recipe revision would allow for not lining the loaf pan at all. 

The flavor is as good as I remembered, i.e. delicious! The loaf baked and tested done all through, yet is still so moist it is difficult to slice. Not impossible, mind you, only difficult. Using regular all-purpose flour would likely remedy this part, as wheat flour seems to be drier in general. In future I might bake it a bit longer or add in an extra ¼ cup of the GF flour blend to the recipe. 

I am pleased..... 😁

My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.