Amish Friendship Bread

"Baking soda" by RowdyKittens on Flickr

Ten days ago, a co-worker was kind enough to drop off a bag of starter for some Amish friendship bread. The starter is a light-beige mush that has to be squeezed every day, and fed with extra ingredients (milk, flour, and sugar), until the tenth day.  On the tenth day, one creates four more bags’ worth of starter and bakes two loaves of cinnamon bread with the rest.

As I’m sure you’ve figured out by now:  I made some Amish cinnamon bread yesterday.  While I have yet to try a full slice, I nibbled on the bits that fell off and it was delicious.  Full of flavor and unique personality — this is part coffee cake, part pound cake, with hints of sourdough.

And it’s friendly. It builds a small community.  As you bake, you think of more people to give it to.

Even better, imagine how nice it feels to receive a bit of starter from a friend. Even if you never use the starter.

We could use more nice things like this.