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Preheat oven to 325 as soon as you have finished all your mixing. This will let the oven heat throughout economically before pans go into oven.
Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl and whisk until sugar has ground down all the flour lumps and dry ingredients are well mixed. Combine all of the liquid ingredients into the liquid bowl and whisk until all are well combined. Then pour wet bowl ingredients into dry bowl and mix very thoroughly.
Two loaf recipe - (For 4 loaves double the ingredients).
3 eggs
1 cup Amish batter
1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large box Vanilla instant pudding and pie filling (5 to 6 ounces) or two small boxes (about 3 ounces each).
2 cups flour
I used to whisk it all, but I have changed to hand held mixer when stirring the wet bowl and when combining the wet bowl with the dry bowl. Using the hand held mixer for the dry bowl created a large cloud of flour and it was a mess to wipe down the kitchen..
Let the completely stirred mix sit for 30 minutes in the mixing bowl on the counter to activate the baking soda, baking powder and fermented batter mix to do it's magic before putting the batter into the loaf pans. Start the 30 minute timer as soon as I finish the mixing.
Grease or butter 2 large loaf pans (9" x 5") (glass or metal). Cut about 1/8 inch off a cube of butter for each pan and rub butter on every bit of the inside of the pan and then smooth it out with two fingers, don't skip any area. A can of spray oil works well also.
Pour 2 1/2 cups mix into each bread pan.
Place in oven and cook for 60 minutes at 325 degrees (65 minutes for double recipe).
Remove pans from oven and let cool until bread loosens from the sides (shrinks). If you do this while still hot, you will tear your loaf apart, but let bread cool a bit and while still warm, run a dinner knife along the edges of the pan, separating the bread from the pan. Turn pan over and tap it against your hand or counter until the loaf comes free in your hand (to catch it). Turn right side up and place on cooling racks. After cool, wrap the loaves in saran wrap to keep it fresh. Enjoy.
Optional ingredients: Use 1/2 cup raisins, divided in half and add them to the mix in the baking pans. Things not tried are adding 1 cup chopped walnuts (or other nuts) mixed in well. You can exchange the vanilla pudding for chocolate pudding or banana pudding for changes. One half cup of crushed banana can be used to replace part of the milk. Omit the cinnamon when not using Vanilla Pudding. Experiment for your favorites.
An optional additional step:
In a separate bowl, mix together 1/2 cup sugar and 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon. Dust the buttered pans with half the optional sugar/cinnamon mixture. Sprinkle other half evenly on top just before putting in oven.
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Notes: If your starter mix yeast died, you just don't have anymore or want to start over, there is a starter mix recipe at the end of this bread recipe.
Do not use metal bowls for fermenting. Use glass or ceramic bowls or a one gallon plastic zip lock bag for fermenting the batter. Fermenting in some metal containers makes Wood Alcohol, which is poisonous. On baking day, use wood, plastic or stainless steel bowls for mixing. Whatever is available.
I do not refrigerate fermenting yeast mix. You can extend the fermenting time if you refrigerate to cool the fermenting and expand the time between baking days. If you do not refrigerate the fermenting mix, you will be baking every eight to ten days. I have not experimented with refrigerating the mix to extend the baking days.
I extend my baking days by only "feeding" my room temperature mix 1/3 or 1/2 cup each of milk, sugar and flour every five days. I keep my fermenting batter bowl on top of the refrigerator to keep it room temperature. The yeast bacteria can survive about two weeks without "feeding" it. You can bake every 4th or 5th day after you ferment enough batter. I baked my first bread loaves on day 20 after feeding full recipe measurements every 5th day. I had a lot of batter, but the yeast had evolved in fermentation to a great flavor. By day 20 you have a lot of mix, so it is up to you what you want to do with the excess.
Keep your mix covered to prevent airborne yeast from changing your bread flavor. Using saran wrap over your bowl keeps out the gnats and keeps the mix from crusting. You should stir the mix every day so the liquid wort on top will mix in and improve the flavor of the bread steadily, but batter will survive with less stirring. It is normal for the batter to bubble and ferment. If air gets into your plastic bag, let it out.
In this recipe, it is easier to mix together all the dry ingredients in one bowl, mix together the liquids in another bowl, then pour the liquids into to dry mix bowl and mix..
Day 1: This is the day on which you receive, or make, your batter. Mix ingredents by gently squeezing the bag or place mix in a bowl and stir.
Day 2: Mix ingredents by gently squeezing the bag or place mix in a bowl and stir.
Day 3: Mix ingredents by gently squeezing the bag or place mix in a bowl and stir.
Day 4: Mix ingredents by gently squeezing the bag or place mix in a bowl and stir.
Day 5: Add to the zip lock bag: 1 cup milk, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour. Easiest to pour the fermenting mix from the bag into a bowl, added the milk and stir, then added the mixed flour & sugar and stir. Then return the mix to the zip lock bag. Eventually I just used a bowl for the whole process.
Day 6: Mix ingredents by gently squeezing the bag or place mix in a bowl and stir.
Day 7: Mix ingredents by gently squeezing the bag or place mix in a bowl and stir.
Day 8: Mix ingredents by gently squeezing the bag or place mix in a bowl and stir.
Day 9: Mix ingredents by gently squeezing the bag or place mix in a bowl and stir.
Day 10: BAKING DAY! Mix and divide the starter as follows: Pour entire contends of the bag or bowl into a large bowl. If you want to distribute your batter, take one cup batter for your baking today and set aside. In the remaining batter mix add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk. Stir thoroughly until you have a smooth texture. Pour 1 cup mix into 4 separate Zip lock bags (one gallon size). Keep one bag for yourself and give the other 3 to friends along with a copy of this recipe. If you want to make a double batch, of course you only give away two bags. I use 3 one quart Zip lock bags, leaving my 1 cup in my ferment bowl with 1 cup left over for my todays baking. If you don't have a full cup starter mix for yourself, add add 1/4 cup milk, 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup flour to your scraps today to make sure you have enough batter for the next 10 day cycle. If your 3 Zip lock bags are not passed on to friends on the 10th day, which will be their Day 1, be certain to tell them which stage day the bag is at when you give it to them. They can follow the recipe schedule from recipe you give them..
Test doneness of loaf by sticking a toothpick or dinner knife into it and no dough sticking to it when you pull it out. There will always be oil marks. Only add 5 minutes baking at a time if knife comes out doughy. At sea level the double batch bakes for 65 minutes and take it out of the oven. A single batch bakes for 60 minutes and take it out of the oven. You can adjust your timer settings with practice, but keep notes. Bake longer for crusty, drier loaf.
Cool until bread loosens from the sides (shrinks). The loaf needs to set and cool some, but while still warm run a dinner knife along the edges of the pan, separating the bread from the pan. If you do this while still hot, you will tear your loaf apart. Turn pan over and tap it against your hand or counter until the loaf comes free in your hand (to catch it). Turn right side up and place on cooling racks. I cover my cooled, but slightly warm loaves with saran wrap, but not the ends or the bottom to eliminate water condensing and messing my bread up, until the next morning (I start baking at 7:00PM). Next morning, or when completely cool, I wrap it up with saran wrap to keep it fresh. My loaves have lasted better than a week sitting on the counter, but I only leave one on the counter and put the others in the refrigerator. I have froze loaves before but only for a month or so as it is eaten rather quickly. Since I start baking at about 7:00PM at night, I usually take the bread out of the oven about 10:00PM. Turn right side up and place on serving dish or cutting board and have a nice warm slice before going to bed. It's great. With practice you may shorten up the whole process to about two hours until out of the oven.
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Starter recipe for beginning a new batch of fermenting batter for Amish Friendship Bread
1 package active dry yeast (instant yeast will also work as it is merely more finely ground yeast modules. For those buying yeast in larger packages, that's one tablespoon, perhaps minus 1/8 teaspoon [the 3/4 ounce package says it is just above 2 teaspoons]. Using a full, level tablespoon will not harm the mix as this is not a same day baking mix and it evens out).
1 cup all-purpose, presifted flour
1 cup sugar (white, regular, granulated)
1 cup warm milk (any grade, we use non-fat) (above 110 degrees F may kill the yeast). Micro wave/ heat until warm on wrist, like babies bottle.
In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast in 1 cup warmed milk by stirring until all the yeast is dissolved. In a 1 to 2 quart glass or ceramic bowl, combine 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and whisk well to have the sugar grind the lumps out of the flour. Mix thoroughly or the flour will get lumpy when you add the wet ingredients. Pour the warm milk with dissolved yeast into the flour and sugar and stir until well mixed.. Pour into a Zip lock bag or leave in bowl, covering it with saran wrap. Consider this Day 1 on the fermentation cycle. The mixture will get bubbly buy next morning. (If your glass bowl is small the bubbles may raise and stick to the saran wrap and possibly overflow onto the counter on the second and third days. Don't throw it away, just transfer to larger bowl). Check the bubbles and stir daily to return the wort into the mix. Do not expect to make this starter and use it to bake the same day. Fermentation is a key factor for the yeast growth and flavor, as well as processing the flour and sugar. The beginning mix will have maximum yeast growth and raising between 48 and 72 hours. At end of Day 5 fermentation is over.
For the next 10 days, handle the starter according to the Amish Friendship Bread recipe instructions.
On 2/12/2016, I started a starter batch for Amish Friendship Bread to make sure it works properly. It does work well. Every morning and every evening I stirred the mix down to measure daily raise activity. On 2/13/2016 (Day 1), the mix showed a 1/2" raising at hour 24 and 1 1/2" on hour 38. On 2/14/2016 (Day 2), the mix showed a 3/4" raising at hour 48 and a 1" raise at hour 64. On 2/15/2016 (Day 3), the mix showed a 1/2" raise; on hour 72 and 1/4" raise on hour 86. On 2/16/2016 (Day 4), the mix showed a 1/4" raise at 100 hours and 1/4" raise at hour 115. On 2/17/2016 (Day 5), the mix showed about 1/4" raise at the final stirring at 5:30PM. Then I mixed 1 cup flour and 1 cup sugar and stirred it to mix and grind down the flour lumps. I added 1 cup milk to the raising mix, stirred it in and then added the flour and sugar mix stirring until well mixed. Then I put half the mix in a gallon zip-lock bag for one sister-in-law and the other half in a second gallon zip-lock bag for a second sister-in-law. I will knead the mix in the bags a couple times a day to observe mix activity and give the bags to the girls on 2/19/2016 when we gather to play cards. That's about hour 48 or day 2. I will chart my figures later to insure accuracy. It's late.
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Want to experiment on making Sourdough starter? Eliminate the sugar and exchange the milk for water. On the 10th day of above recipe, take 1 cup of the batter and place it in a separate bowl. Stir in thoroughly 1 cup warm water, then 1 cup flour. On Day 5, Mix in ("feed") 1 cup warm water and 1 cup flour. On Day 10: Mix in ("feed") 1 cup warm water and 1 cup flour. This should be your Sourdough starter ready to bake with. I lost my original sourdough starter by not paying attention to it. It developed a black scum throughout and it had to be dumped. Many bad things in there. I have started another sourdough batch and it has been fine for two months. I search Better Homes and Gardens at www.bhg.com for my sourdough baked pan loaves recipe. I will try it as French Bread and Sheepherders Bread later, using my starter. I have made one loaf of sourdough pan bread, but only a faint "sour" taste. It did have a unique, delicious sweet bread taste though.
My Sourdough Recipe
1 cup sourdough starter (you can make your own starter using the Amish starter, omitting the sugar and replacing the milk with water, takes days to establish "sour" taste).
1 1/4 cups warm water
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoons yeast
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
6 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons butter to grease the bread pan
Mix starter, sugar, yeast, warm water into small bowl and let rest at least 10 minutes to start bubbling well. In large bowl mix flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. In the large bowl make a hole in the flour and stir in the liquid mixture, stir lightly. Flour a pressing area on counter top. Pour batter onto counter top to finish pressing dough to mix ingredients. Flour dough lightly as you press it until just not sticky and roll into a ball. Cover dough and let the batter rest in warm spot for 1 1/2 hours. Warm oven to 375 degrees. Press dough down lightly to form it until it will fit into bread pan Place dough into bread pan and let the bread rest for ten minutes. Grease the bread pan with butter (Pam spray will work). Make three diagonal slices on the bread about 1/4 inch down with a sharp knife. This will guide the bread expansion as it bakes. Place bread pan in 375 degree oven. Bake for 40 minutes. Cover with foil at 30 minutes for less crusty top.
NOTES:
On 1/18/2015 I made normal batch for 4 Amish loaves, split dough in half and put 1 1/2 cups raisins in 1/2 batch as soon as dough was finished mixing. Let ferment usual 30 minutes. Put all 4 pans in oven at 325 degrees. All 4 loaves cooked well art 65 minutes. Raisins did sink mostly to the bottom half of loaf, but I will experiment and reduce raisins to 1/2 cup per loaf and put the raisins in dough just before I put bread into oven to see if they mix better in baked loaf.
Amish Biscotti: On November 29, 2015, I made Biscotti Bread from baked Amish Bread. Bake the Amish Friendship Bread and let it cool. Slice bread into 1/2" slices and then cut the slice in half long ways for a nice bread stick. I placed slices on a cookie sheet and baked them at 300 degrees for 15 minutes. To soft. Baked them another 10 minutes. To soft. Baked them another 10 minutes. To soft. Top was starting to brown. Turned the slices over and baked them another 10 minutes. They were well baked, maybe a little to hard. Resources say bake until doneness is to your taste. Bake slightly higher degree (guessing 25 degrees) for shorter time for lighter crunch. Bake lower degree longer for harder crunch. Biscotti history says Biscotti originated in time of war and had a very long life span. Next batch will be baked at 300 degrees 20 minutes, turn bread over and baked another 20 minutes. For recipe development, I will take one half of a loaf of Amish Bread Sticks and I will sprinkle top with a mixture of 1/2 cup sugar and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon with another sprinkle on top after I turn over bread. The other half of the loaf I will not flavor and use as flavor comparison for toppings. I will keep a few slices of the Amish Biscotti in a jar to test time durability. Maybe good survivalist food.
On Tuesday, December 8, 2015, I sliced and baked another loaf of Amish Friendship Bread to make Biscotti. I baked the stick slices for 20 minutes on one side turned it over and baked it another 20 minutes. It was to soft. Baked it another 10 minutes, turning it over at 5 minutes. Still to soft. Baked it another 10 minutes, turning it over at 5 minutes. Still flexible and soft for Biscotti, but I suddenly realized that any pastry will be soft while it is still hot. I let the slices cool and they hardened nicely. The texture seemed good and taste was good.. I will experiment with baking the sticks 48 minutes, turning them every 12 minutes for equal side baking. So I will turn the sticks at 12 minutes, 24 minutes and 36 minutes. That seems like it would be the lighter side of the crunchie I am looking for. If to soft, I will boost the baking one minute per period between turns to 52 minutes and so on. I experimented with sprinkling 9 sticks lightly with the cinnamon and sugar mixture. I used a small batch at a ratio of one cinnamon to three sugar, in this case 1/2 tablespoon cinnamon 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar and had a lot left over. I was not impressed with any taste enhancement and the sugar did not melt as I thought it would.
Amish Mini-Cakes: On January 16, 2016, I made up a new baking process that I have dubbed Amish Mini-Cakes. I gradually built up a supply of forty two processed aluminum cans with about a 3 1/8" diameter for baking cans. I made a double batch of Amish batter as normal, but I ditched the loaf pans and put the forty cans on cookie sheets after I put 1/4 cup of batter in each can. I used a spray can of Canola oil to coat the inside of the cans. I baked the mini-cakes at 325 degrees. I checked the batter at 20 minutes and it was really wet. I baked the dough another 20 minutes and they turned out great. The mini-cakes are 3" across and almost 1" high. After cooling, the mini-cakes shrunk enough to just pop out on the cans when I slapped the can against my hand. The mini-cakes are great to eat like a thick cookie or muffin and are less messy that a doughnut. I wrapped the mini-cakes individually with saran wrap and they kept well. I froze about half of them. They thawed just fine. A single batch of dough should make 20 to 22 mini-cakes. Double the number for the double recipe. I am shooting for a three batch of dough to make 66 mini-cakes at a time. It is time consuming to measure out 1/4 cup per can and then hand wash all the cans, but well worth the effort. Very popular.
On 2/17/2016, I made another batch of mini-cake, but increased the dough to 1/3 cup per baking can. I wound up with 32 mini-cakes versus 44 at 1/4 cup per can. I set my timer for 42 minutes for baking (40 minutes plus a couple minutes franticly looking for the baking time online. The mini-cakes baked fine at 42 minutes. I had a couple tablespoons of extra dough and had put it into one of the cans and it did not come out good. The extra dough raised about 3/8" above the top of the can and mushroomed out over the can and the middle caved in as the mini-cake cooled. The top 1/4" was still wet and it needed to bake about 10 more minutes. Do not waste a perfectly good mini-cake by adding extra mix to it. Put any excess in a seperate can and take it out early or just toss it out. The other 31 mini-cakes just made it to the top of the can and remained a nice mild dome top, slightly shrinking from the side of the baking can. Those mini-cakes were 1 1/4" at the shoulder and the dome peaked at almost 1 3/4". Wife and I each had a nice warm mini-cake and it was light, raised with a really nice bubble texture and tasted wonderful. The 1/3 cup mini-cakes are not as convenient as the 1/4 cup mini-cakes to hold in your fingers and eat in regular size bites. They are the height of a cupcake and you eat from the edges or pull off a chunk to eat. Both are a good size for sales, gifts or your own breakfast snack.
I finished an analysis of the cost of ingredients for a loaf, a mini-cake and a large mini-cake. Costs are calculated with standard range of products, not premium, but not unknown brands. The ingredients for one loaf is $1.49, one mini-cake is $.20 and one large mini-cake is $.24. I will post the table in a few days. By far, the most expensive ingredient is the Jello Vanilla Pudding at $.54 per loaf ($1.08 for a 5.1 ounce box). Eggs are next at $.23 per loaf. Flour is next at $.18 per loaf with Canola Oil and Vanilla tied at 4th with $.15 per loaf. Way less than any store product and such a tasty treat.
On 3/7/2016, I tripled the batch mix expecting to make 45 mini-cakes of 1/3 cup batter each. I had 4 cans left over. Seems impossible, but I'll recount after I get them out of the oven. Baking the triple batch at 325 degrees with timer set at 40 minutes. The tricky part was getting that many cans onto my cookie sheets and into the oven. The top oven shelf is wall to wall, front to back, cookie sheets with mini-cakes. We'll see how the upper and lower shelves compare. Checked top shelf at 42 minutes and added 1 minute to bake.
Took the mini-cakes out at 43 minutes. A huge difference in upper shelf and lower shelf mini-cakes. The upper shelf mini-cakes were perfect, lightly browned, slightly pulled away from the sides with a nice low mound in the middle. The lower self mini-cakes had baked a bit to long. They were dark brown, pulled away from the sides and the crowns had risen quite high. So I will have to bring the lower shelf mini-cakes out earlier than the upper shelf. I wound up with 44 mini-cakes, so I had mincounted my baking cans.
Next time I do so many I will put the bottom row wall to wall and base the bake time on them. I will check them at 15 minutes and guage from there. That will leave the lower number of mini-cakes on the upper shelf to recalculate how much longer to bake them. My last batch with 32 mini-cakes I had used two cookie sheets with one in the middle on upper shelf and one in the middle on the lower shelf and they turned out very even in baking quality.
November 23, 2016. Made another batch of mini-cakes. Forgot to read my notes for baking times on mini-cakes. We have boughten six muffin baking pans, each with 6 muffin mold holes. Four are exact matches in metal and shape, however I don't anticipate any baking changes or difficulties with the other two. This will allow me to bake 54 mini-cakes at a time. Theoreticly. Not sure I have that much room in the oven. I'll check it out later. I made a single batch of mix that produced 20 mini-cakes. I used standard cupcake paper baking cups. I put 1/4 cup batter into each baking cup resting in the pans. Since I had batter for 20 mini-cakes in 24 holes, I put batter in five holes each of the four pans. Worked great. Our stove has five shelf guides. I used the #2 and #4 shelf settings. Baked the mini-cakes 40 minutes and it worked fine. I did notice a much better rounded dome mini-cakes on the upper shelf. The lower shelf produced flatter mini-cakes that were not as attractive as the upper shelf (in side by side comparison), but still well formed. I will think about the lower shelf getting the batter hotter a tiny bit faster (or vice versa) than the upper shelf and causing the difference in the rounded dome. All mini-cakes baked perfectly in the regular size cup cake baking cups. They were delicious. We had one while they were still warm.
December 14, 2016. I made a double batch of Amish mix for mini-cakes. My math was off. In my mind I was thinking my muffin pans had 9 molds each, but there are only 6 molds. I was suppose to have dough to make 40 mini-cakes (1/4 cup each mold), but I only had 30 molds in the 5 pans I prepared. I dumped the remaining dough into a loaf pan. I will not forget to count the molds again. With 5 pans baking I had to use two oven shelves. I did notice an increased difference in the upper and lower shelf cooking of the mini cakes. The upper shelf cooked to my desired doness, but the lower shelf overbaked and should have been taken out or tested at least five minutes earlier. Important to learn the lower shelf cooks faster. As it is, the upper shelf bakes good mini-cakes at 40 minutes and the lower shelf bakes at 35 (or so) minutes. The over loaded loaf pan needed to remain baking for about 75 minutes total time. I did find out to arrange the pans to bake with 6 muffin pans, 3 on top and 3 on lower shelf; adjusting the removal time for the lower shelf.
On my fermenting bowl I use saran wrap. With this last batch I cut a one inch hole in the middle of the saran wrap to experiment with the mix being allowed to breath freely. I put a folded kitchen towel over the bowl to keep the gnats out of the mix, but still allow free breathing. I think I noticed a bit more intense seasoning effect in tasting the raw dough mix. The dough mix was not as fluid as a significant amount of water evaporated from the mix. I will continue with the hole in the cover until I get a better understanding of the flavor effect.
God Bless and take care. Bill Hampton
Last updated on Novermber 23, 2016