AMISH BREAD - The Southern Lady Cooks - Old Fashioned Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Can you freeze the starter for Amish Friendship Bread? ›

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.

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.

Starters are usually kept at room temperature for the first 10 days or so to help them grow. Once they've matured, they can be stored in the fridge or freezer and fed every week or two to keep them alive. A properly fed and stored starter can last for years.

A “tight crumb” aka small holes in the interior of your bread can be the result of different factors: under-fermenting, over-fermenting, and a lack of gluten development. The most confounding part of sourdough bread baking is that the rise times of recipes are just a suggestion or range.

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.

People making Amish Friendship Bread for the first time often ask what their starter should smell like. Your starter should have a lovely, yeasty smell, like getting a whiff of bread rising in a bakery, times five. If you stick your nose into your bag of starter, you'll get a pretty heady hit of yeast.

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.

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.

According to Elizabeth Coblentz, a member of the Old Order Amish and the author of the syndicated column "The Amish Cook", true Amish friendship bread is "just sourdough bread that is passed around to the sick and needy".

Can I leave my starter out overnight after feeding it? Yes, if you have just fed it. Since the night is rather long, feed it in a 1:4:4 ratio so that's not over fermented by the morning. If for example you use a 1:1:1 ratio, the starter would have peaked in the middle of the night, and collapse by the morning.

What should my Amish Friendship Bread starter smell like? ›

Your starter should smell like yeasty–sweet, tangy, and fermented. It reminds some people of beer. Fermenting batter is, well, fermenting batter so it may not smell like roses but it shouldn't smell bad.

Just smear some fresh sourdough starter in a thin layer over a piece of parchment paper and let dry. Once dry, the starter will easily separate from the paper and can be ground up into small pieces and placed in a plastic ziplock bag. Store your starter in the freezer for as long as you like.

Add Sugar

Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.

Too much flour and not enough water can cause crumbly bread – people often do this if the dough is too sticky and they add more flour rather than kneading through it. Other culprits can be overproving or not kneading enough – the things you need to do to get a good structure.

While bread flour is the best option, it can sometimes be used if you don't have bread flour. “Check the protein content,” advises Chef Jürgen, since it can vary from brand to brand, and an all-purpose flour that contains protein on the higher end of the range, 12 to 13 percent, will produce a better outcome.

Prior to freezing, your starter needs to be thriving and active, which means it should have been fed in the past 24 hours (feeding = reduce your starter to 1 cup, then add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk. Stir well). Prior to that, your starter should have had plenty of bubbles.

Feed your sourdough starter. Allow to ferment for 4-12 hours or until active and bubbly. Spoon the active starter into the tray of your choice (muffin tin lined in parchment paper or muffin liners, ice cube tray, or silicone muffin cups) Freeze until completely frozen.

What makes Amish Friendship Bread starter so special is that it keeps on giving–you could keep it on your counter indefinitely, removing a cup to bake with indefinitely. Like any sourdough starter, if you take good care of it, you'll always have yeast on hand, and it's easy to share with friends.

Yes, AFB starter is hardy, but it needs to be fed. If your starter turns pink or has pink splotches, throw it out. After feeding it, nothing happens. Again, every starter (and kitchen) is different so you don't want to be impatient.