Amish Friendship Bread Starter Recipe & Printable (2024)

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Amish Friendship Bread recipe is perfect to share with friends. Now you can make your own with this Friendship bread starter recipe & free printable for giving as a gift!

Amish Friendship Bread Starter Recipe & Printable (1)

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The other day I was looking through my past emails when I came across an email I had sent my stepmother with anAmish Friendship Bread recipe as well as a Friendship Bread starter recipe. I realized I hadn’t made any in years and years!

What is Amish friendship bread?

If you aren’t familiar, Amish Friendship Bread is a sweet bread that you make off a sourdough starter.

The starter is “fed” and kept for ten days, then divided into four portions, three of which you can gift to friends and one you use to bake the most heavenly cinnamon sugared bread! Then your friends can pass along the Amish Friendship Bread recipe to their friends and so on and so on indefinitely.

When I was newly married I would receive a starter a couple of times a year from friends and neighbors and always enjoyed it. Sometimes, though, you want to make this delicious bread and you need to create your own starter if no one you know has some on hand.

I decided to share the starter recipe with you all along with printable instructions and the Amish Friendship Bread recipe gifting sheet you can use to pass it along to friends and family.

Amish Friendship Bread Starter Recipe & Printable (2)

Starter ingredients

  • dry yeast
  • warm water
  • all-purposeflour
  • sugar
  • milk

Step by step starter

  1. Dissolve yeast int warm water and let it sit 10 minutes.
  2. Combine flour and sugar and mix well.
  3. Add milk, then yeast mixture and allow to sit until bubbly.
  4. Add starter to a plastic gallon bag.
  5. Follow the instructions on the printable. You can also use a permanent marker to write the instructions on the bag for easy reference. You will squeeze the bag daily days 2-4, feed it day 5, squeeze again days 6-9.
  6. On day 10 feed it, divide it, and make your delicious bread!

Tips for best results

  • Always use nonmetal bowls and utensils for the sourdough starter, it is acidic and can breakdown the metal
  • You can freeze Amish Friendship Bread by wrapping it tightly in plastic wrap or foil and placing in a heavy-duty freezer bag. Freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight at room temperature.

When I gifted this set of starter I rolled the plastic bags and put them in standard sized mason jars (with these cute red tops!) It’s important your starter doesn’t touch metal because of the chemical reaction it will cause so don’t gift in the jar without using the plastic bag!

Amish Friendship Bread Starter Recipe & Printable (3)

Printable card for gifting

I print mine on 80lb cardstock for durability but you can easily print on standard paper as well. You could also laminate it too!

Variations

  • add chocolate chips, chopped nuts, dried cranberries, butterscotch chips, raisins, etc
  • bake as muffins by reducing the baking time to 25-35 minutes
  • omit pudding mix for a slightly different flavor

Have you tried an Amish Friendship Bread recipe, there are actually quite a few variations out there. If yours is different than mine I’d love for youto share it in the comments so we can all try it!

You might also like these delicious bread recipes:

  • Apple Cinnamon Bread
  • Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
  • Cream CheesePumpkin Bread

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Amish Friendship Bread Starter Recipe & Printable (5)

Amish Friendship Bread and Starter Recipe

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5 from 7 reviews

  • Author: Melissa
  • Total Time: 10 minutes
  • Yield: 6 1x
Print Recipe

Description

Amish Friendship Bread is the perfect recipe to share with friends. Now you can make your own with this starter recipe along with a free printable for gifting starter to others!

Ingredients

Units Scale

Starter

  • 1 packet active dry yeast
  • 1/4 cup warm water
  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 cup milk

For Feeding the Starter (2 feedings total)

  • 2.5 cups sugar, divided
  • 2.5 cups all-purpose flour, divided
  • 2.5 cups milk, divided

Friendship Bread

  • 1 cup starter
  • 1/2 cup sugar + 1.5teaspoons ground cinnamon for dusting the pan
  • 3 large eggs
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 large box instant vanilla pudding
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Instructions

For the Starter

  1. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in water and allow to sit ten minutes (mixture will turn frothy.)
  2. In another nonmetal bowl combine flour and sugar and mix well. Slowly stir in milk, then yeast mixture.
  3. Allow to sit until bubbly then add to a gallon plastic bag and follow the instructions on the printable, squeezing the bag once a day to stir days 2-4, feeding one cup each of sugar, flour, and milk.
  4. Squeeze again once per day days 6-9.
  5. On day 10 add 1.5 cups each sugar, flour, and milk and stir.
  6. Reserve one cup for your baking and divide the remaining starter into 3 gallon plastic bags: one to continue feeding and 2 for gifting.

For the Bread

  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit
  2. Grease two large bread pans.
  3. Mix 1/2 cup sugar and 1 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon and dust greased pans with the mixture, tapping out excess into a bowl for later.
  4. Mix remaining ingredients in a large nonmetal bowl until smooth.
  5. Pour evenly in the two pans and top with remaining cinnamon sugar.
  6. Bake 50-60 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
  7. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pan.

Notes

  • starter can be frozen to save for later, once thawed that is the new day 1
  • nutritional information is for final baked bread
  • Prep Time: 10 min
  • Category: dessert
  • Method: baking
  • Cuisine: American

Nutrition

  • Serving Size:
  • Calories: 408
  • Sugar: 32.3 g
  • Sodium: 511.6 mg
  • Fat: 16.9 g
  • Carbohydrates: 58.2 g
  • Protein: 7.1 g
  • Cholesterol: 87.9 mg

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Melissa Riker

Melissa Riker is a recipe developer and online content creator who has been sharing kitchen-tested recipes since 2011. Her passion (other than wine and cheese!) is creating reliable, no-fail recipes for home cooks.

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.

Why is my Amish Friendship Bread starter not bubbling? ›

This is usually the case in cold environments (AC under 70F, winter kitchens). If your starter is barely bubbling or not bubbling at all 12-24 hours after the last feeding, simply stir it again and let the jar sit for a day or two. Then feed again and see if you get bubbles.

Can Amish Friendship Bread starter go bad? ›

If your starter looks discolored with a pink or green tinge, has mold (a no-brainer but worth mentioning), or if the sharp acetone smell doesn't go away, discard your starter and make a new one from scratch. It's sad, but so is food poisoning. The rule in the Friendship Bread Kitchen is: when in doubt, throw it out.

Can Amish Friendship Bread starter be frozen? ›

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.

What is the oldest sourdough starter? ›

In 2020, Seamus Blackley, the creator of Xbox and a seasoned baker himself, baked sourdough bread from dormant yeast samples that are 4,500 years old, according to the Atlas Obscura website.

Which sourdough starter is best? ›

100% hydration starters are the most common type. They're easy to maintain, easy to mix into a dough, and more straightforward to adapt into dough calculations for bread. Drier starters require more maintenance, are harder to mix into doughs, and the math is a little trickier.

Should I stir my sourdough starter between feedings? ›

It is important that you stir the sourdough starter every day in the morning and in the evening. Feed the starter. Add 60 g flour and 60 g lukewarm water, stir well to combine, and let sit out for 24 hours.

Why can't you use a metal bowl for Amish Friendship Bread? ›

The original instructions for Amish Friendship Bread states that you should not use metal bowls or utensils. The original reason was because there's a chemical reaction that occurs between the fermenting starter and metal.

Can you overfeed sourdough starter? ›

The colony of wild yeast and bacteria inside your starter jar are fairly resilient, however, like most living things, they can be overfed. When you overfeed a sourdough starter you dilute the natural population of yeast and bacteria, making your sourdough culture weak and inactive.

Why does my Amish Friendship Bread sink in the middle? ›

Keep the oven door closed while your Amish Friendship Bread is baking. You may be tempted to peek, but sudden temperature drops can result in the bread collapsing in the middle.

Can I skip one day of feeding my sourdough starter? ›

If you miss one of your starter feedings, it'll be just fine.

Do you keep bread starter in the fridge? ›

Sourdough starter can be stored at room temperature or in the fridge. If you're feeding and making bread with your starter regularly (once a week or so) you can leave it out at room temperature. If you're going away for a bit or if you don't use it that often (once a month or less), store it in the fridge.

Why is it called friendship bread? ›

Amish Friendship Bread is a great bread for the holidays. 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 revive a frozen bread starter? ›

To reactivate the frozen starter, place a cube into a jar and allow it to thaw. Once fully thawed, feed with 100g water and 100g flour. The next day transfer 25 grams to a new jar and feed with 100 grams of water and 100 grams of flour. Feed the starter once a day until it starts to double in size.

Why can't you freeze bread twice? ›

You can safely refreeze breads, cookies and similar bakery items. However, the end product is likely to be a drier, lower quality product.

What is a substitute for sourdough starter? ›

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.

What is another name for sourdough 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.

Are all sourdough starters equal? ›

The key difference between all of the starters is how much water is used in the starter. The regular starter has a 1:1 relationship of flour to water. The liquid starter has a 5:1 water-to-flour ratio, and the stiff starter has half as much water as flour, as summarized in Table 4.1.

Is poolish similar to sourdough starter? ›

A poolish is a version of sourdough starter or preferment, except that poolish is made with commercial yeast as opposed to natural or wild yeast. A poolish also requires much less time than a sourdough starter. Both poolish and sourdough starter are fed with wheat flour and fermented at room temperature.

References

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