apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I have made it and it's sooo good! Also, a great gift to people. I gave the a baked loaf in a holiday tin in addition to a starter. It was a big hit!

For the starter, it's perfectly acceptable to freeze it once you've started to get sick of the bread and bring it out at a later date when the hankerings begin again. Have fun!

i made some. i doubt is is authentically amish, as it calls for instant pudding, which i don't think the amish use. (i was looking online for a non-pudding version, and could not find one.)

that said, the starter taste is nice, and i like the dense texture, but i think you get similar flavor (although more delicate texture) with a lot less effort from a basic yogurt cake like clotilde's: http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives/2005/10/yogurt_cake.php

so for me, it wasn't worth the effort.

I've made it, it just tasted like sweet yeasty dough. I tossed the recipe after the first batch... not worth the effort or calories.

I've made it and would agree it is more coffee cake like than bread. I used instant lemon and chocolate pudding because I had already started making it when I realized I was out of vanilla pudding. It tasted quite yummy though with the lemon giving it a nice zing.

This went around our group of friends a year or so ago. It started out fun and delicious, but since we were all friends with the same people, we quickly ran out of people who actually wanted the starter (and I seem to remember that it makes a LOT of starter to give away or use). We didn't know you could freeze it, but we might not have done so anyway, since something in it didn't agree with my husband's system. Very yummy though!

OK, maybe I'm a bigger food snob than I thought...but a recipe that uses instant pudding mix? Ick. Especially since quick breads using natural ingredients are so easy to make.

A pox on purveyors of friendship bread starter! More than once someone has presented me (unbidden, let me add, but with much enthusiasm) with what can only be described as "the dog's lunch." If I wanted something to care for, I'd get a pet, even a virtual one at FaceBook. If you want to share a recipe, bring it on, but keep the half-baked, half-fermented, half-whatever it is mixtures to yourself...PLEASE. You dispense not friendship bread but friendship-ending bread.

Initially I liked my amish friendship bread. I tried pistachio pudding and vanilla pudding with it and both turned out well, but then I forgot to mush the bag and add the flour and sugar and stuff, so I used it all up in one batch (which didn't turn out so well). I agree with others that it is fun for a while, but then adding the flour and maintaining the batch gets tiresome. If someone has a recipe without using the pudding mix I'd be interested to hear about it.

Wow, I hadn't seen this since I was a little girl. Thanks for the memory!

Oh this went around like a rash a while back here...drove me nuts with the waste & calories!

I received a batch around the holidays and made this a few weeks back. It was surprisingly.. GOOD! like someone previously commented, it was very similar to a coffee cake, esp w/ the sugar mix that's sprinkled on top!

After making my own bread, I thought of passing my leftover batter (in batches) onto friends. But then I remembered that no one I know bakes. For shame! its a yummy recipe!

I had an interesting experience with this. a coworker brought a batch to work and I took it home. I did the mushing, but somehow in the end, forgot the instant pudding. it didn't seem to affect it at all, maybe just slightly more cakey than the regular version (so, maybe those of you who find the pudding a turn-off should try it without). I was surprised, though, at how cake-like it was (even when made 'correctly') and would be interested in making a less sweet version.

during the second batch I had company over halfway through. since it's not the prettiest thing to look at, I put it in the cupboard. but... I forgot about it. and it exploded. don't forget to let the air out...

and if someone tries to give it to you and you don't want it? all you have to do is politely reply, "I'm not much of a baker, so I'd hate for the batter to go to waste, but thank you for thinking of me."

It is tasty - better when you have the munchies (the real kind, if you catch me) - and when it "went around" five or so years back I made so many batches over a six-month period that my roommate and I each gained twenty pounds. One weekend we chucked the starter, waved goodbye to it as it went down the disposal, and pulled on our runners for a jog. Never again!

I've never heard of Amish Friendship Bread with pudding mix. I didn't see any included in the recipes here, when I took a quick look:

http://allrecipes.com/Search/Recipes.aspx?WithTerm=amish%20friendship%20bread

As for it not being "authentic" Amish, if it does include pudding mix, I don't know that that's true. Each group makes their own rules. They generally use what's available. The group that lives near my parents uses vinyl siding, gas powered power saws, and a gas powered restaurant sized Hobart mixer. They shop at Wal-Mart, Price Chopper, Aldi's.

I either freeze it, or I cut the recipe down so that I don't need to make the bread as often. (It's bread in the sense of banana bread, in my opinion.) I generally don't hand out the starter, unless someone asks for it. And I can always start it again with the recipe for the starter.

A friend gave me this and while I appreciated it, it seemed like a lot of work for what it was (I mushed it for a few days but then gave up). The sample I had from the person who gave it to me tasted just like any other quick bread recipe, and to work for 10 days or however long to make a quick bread seemed silly.

I also thought it funny that the instructions claimed that the art of making starters was long lost, since I have many baking books that tell you how to make starters for breads like sourdoughs.

I think I wouldn't have minded the work if it had actually tasted like bread instead of cake.

Oooohhh....I want in on the fun. Now I feel like a little kid left out of something that all ther cool kids were doing.

My mom made something like this recipe in the late 70's or early 80's. It was all the rage in Toronto then.

Stuff is fascinating; it multiplies like rats! It was pretty tasty once, but the effort you go through just isn't worth it to me.

And now I live with a bunch of heathens, so it would probably end up as a projectile or pitched with the rest of the rotting things that I don't touch (if it has your name on it, you get to deal with it :).

I've never seen the pudding bit for unbaked things, though...what's that supposed to do, exactly?

I was given starter for this Amish bread by my husband's aunt for xmas. Always thought it was pretty funny that it uses pudding mix, but it turned out pretty yummy, cake-like. I make it sometimes to take in to work anytime we have brunch pot-luck. That way I don't have to eat it and everyone at work loves it. My husband did some math and figured out how to use the recipe without creating extra starter bags so I don't have to force it on friends and I keep the starter I do have in the freezer. I hate buying the pudding, but pulling out the starter for a quick emergency cake is easy. I'll have to try making the recipe without the pudding next time, as someone mentioned it was pretty good that way.

In my house we call this enemy bread. We were given some starter and thought we followed all directions correctly, it even tasted good, but something went horribly wrong somewhere in the process and everyone who ate it got sick....very, very sick...Ugh

Before this christmas I had never even heard of the stuff and then I got three bags of starters from different people! (after I had decided to go ahead and make my own starter)...Im a control freak so I wanted to make my own starter when I coworker brought it in and offered the starter to people.

It's amazing. Next time I think I'll add raisins or chocolate chips!