Amish Friendship Bread

I'm making Amish Friendship Bread. Well, I'm waiting to make it, which is actually part of making it, as it has to sit for TEN days before you can bake it!! I haven't had any Amish bread in years, since someone gave me the starter dough in a little Ziploc bag, only a couple of years into my marriage. I thought it was the weirdest thing, back then, to have to let the dough sit and be worked on by the yeast for days, with extra ingredients added on the fifth and tenth days... but after I baked and tasted it, I loved it so much that I've been wanting to make it again for years.

So I finally looked up the starter recipe online, and made up a batch. It's now on Day 8, so hopefully on Thursday I will be able to report that I have successfully baked and eaten Amish Friendship Bread!

Here is the recipe for the starter, taken from bread.allrecipes.com :


INGREDIENTS:
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
3 cups all-purpose flour, divided
3 cups white sugar, divided
3 cups milk

DIRECTIONS:
In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Let stand 10 minutes. In a 2 quart glass, plastic or ceramic container, combine 1 cup flour and 1 cup sugar. Mix thoroughly or flour will lump when milk is added. Slowly stir in 1 cup milk and dissolved yeast mixture. Cover loosely and let stand until bubbly. Consider this day 1 of the 10 day cycle. Leave loosely covered at room temperature.
On days 2 thru 4; stir starter with a spoon. Day 5; stir in 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Days 6 thru 9; stir only.
Day 10; stir in 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Remove 1 cup to make your first bread, give 2 cups to friends along with this recipe, and your favorite Amish Bread recipe. Store the remaining 1 cup starter in a container in the refrigerator, or begin the 10 day process over again (beginning with step 2).

And also - very important, and they didn't emphasize it in this recipe - don't use metal bowls or spoons. I'm not sure why... maybe it kills off the yeast or something.

When I figure out which bread recipe is the same as the one I made all those years ago, I will post that here as well. Just in CASE anyone else might like to make this! It's really fun watching the yeast making the dough bubble and puff all up! It's even kind of fun anticipating eating it for ten days. :)