Amish Friendship Bread Starter Recipe & Printable (2024)

FAQs

Is Amish friendship bread starter the same as sourdough starter? ›

A Herman starter or Amish Friendship Bread Starter is typically made with milk, flour, sugar and commercial yeast. A sourdough starter is generally made only of flour and water. A Herman starter will be sweeter and more mellow flavored than a sourdough starter.

Active Amish friendship starter will keep for up to three months in the freezer. "You can also pop your starter in the fridge, but you can't forget about it like you can with freezing your starter," Gee says.

In a large bowl, combine the Amish bread starter with oil, eggs, 2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Mix well. Pour into prepared loaf pans. Bake in preheated oven for 50 to 60 minutes.

Liquid starters have higher enzymatic activity than stiff ones, which means they can confer greater extensibility to a dough. This makes them the better choice for breads that require extensive manipulation during shaping, like baguettes, bagels, or pizza. Liquid starters are quicker to ferment than stiff ones.

Indefinitely unless it gets contaminated, gets too cold (so goes dormant), or isn't properly fed. As long as you keep your starter healthy, you'll never run out! Once you get a healthy starter going, consider putting some aside in the freezer (1 cup in a Ziploc bag) as a backup.

Does Amish friendship bread need to be refrigerated? No. After the bread has cooled completely, you can store it like any other baked good in an airtight container at room temperature for several days, or wrap it tightly and freeze it for later.

If too much moisture escapes, the bread could dry out. Check expiration dates and use fresh ingredients. For Amish Friendship Bread in particular, you'll want to make sure your yeast (if starting a starter from scratch), baking soda, and baking powder are fresh.

Keep the starter in a jar (properly closed and sealed with the lid on) in the fridge for a maximum of 2 weeks. At the end of the 2 weeks you have to give your starter some food and water before it runs out of food and dies! So take your sourdough out from your fridge and let it come to room temperature.

First of all, one of the most common reasons quick breads (and layer cakes as well) sink is that the pan is overfilled. If the batter reaches the top of the pan and still needs to rise, it will collapse.

When you've made your bread, you can give your friends a sample and the starter that made it! Then your friends can make their own and pass it along to their friends. This is why the bread is called "friendship bread".

How do you store Amish Friendship Bread after baking? ›

Most of our Amish Friendship Bread recipes behave like quick breads. The loaves freeze well when wrapped in freezer wrap, foil, or freezer bags. For coffee cakes, I recommend baking and freezing them in disposable pans that can be wrapped and can go right into the freezer.

As fermentation gasses build up in the container , let it out or the bag will go BOOM! It is normal for the batter to rise, bubble, ferment and smell like good beer or alcohol. Smelling like nasty feet is bad and means that your starter died and you need to toss it an start again.

why can't you use metal when making amish friendship bread? They say use wooden or non metal, as the Amish always used wooden spoons. It's also said by using metal in the batter it could spoil the fermenting process of the batter as well. Some say it will even change the color, change the taste as well.

And you guessed it..the more starter you use, the faster your dough will ferment - resulting in a less sour loaf. Using less starter in your recipe will help slow down the fermentation process.

Starter. The preparation of sourdough begins with a pre-ferment (the "starter" or "leaven", also known as the "chief", "chef", "head", "mother" or "sponge"), a fermented mixture of flour and water, containing a colony of microorganisms including wild yeast and lactobacilli.

But what if you're craving that distinctive tang and don't have a sourdough starter on hand? Enter yogurt — the unexpected substitute that can give your bread that familiar zing while creating a unique twist on the classic.

Generally, you can substitute a packet of yeast for 100g of sourdough starter. If your recipe uses less than a packet of yeast, you can use less sourdough starter, however it won't make too much difference because of the way wild yeast works.

The starter is a mixture of flour and water that captures wild yeast and bacteria over time, creating a leavening agent for bread. On the other hand, sourdough discard refers to the portion of the starter that is removed and discarded before feeding the remaining starter during regular maintenance.