Amish Friendship Bread

On Monday of this week I showed you how to make an Amish Friendship Starter. It is a sweet sourdough that can be used to make many different kinds of quick breads, muffins, and even cakes! Today, I thought that I would start with the basic Quick Bread recipe. 

You can see the original recipe here. Below I have listed it with the changes I made.

Amish Friendship Bread
2 cups starter
3 eggs
1 cup oil (Next time I make this, I am only going to use 1/2 cup. I have difficulty eating a slice with this much oil in it. I used olive oil.)
1 cup sugar (I really don't think this is necessary! Way too much sugar! I only used 1/2 cup and next time I am going to use 1/3 cup.)
1/2 tsp vanilla (I used 1 tsp. I made my own. You can see how to do that here.)
2 tsps cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp baking powder (I used 2 tsp.)
1/2 tsp salt (I used a scant 1/2 tsp.)
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 cups flour (I used whole wheat made from soft white wheat berries.)
1-2 boxes instant pudding, any flavor (I used one small box of vanilla.)
1 cup chopped nuts, optional (Although this is listed as optional, I think you should add nuts. I made one batch with nuts and one without. The nuts win! I used walnuts.)

In a separate bowl mix:
1/2 cup sugar (Again, this is too much sugar! You will only waste it if you use 1/2 cup. A more appropriate amount is 1/3 - 1/4 cup.)
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

I started with the batter. I added each ingredient to the mixing bowl and then whisked it in before I added the next. I went right down the recipe and added them in the order listed. Here is what mine looked liked when I finished. The picture is of the batter without the nuts.

Next, grease the loaf pans. You will need two. I greased mine with Pam olive oil spray. Then, take some of the sugar/cinnamon mixture and lightly dust the pans. Here is what mine looked like.

 Pour in the batter. Fill the pans about 1/2 full. You can sprinkle the rest of the topping on the batter before you bake it.  Here is mine.

Let me add here that I think the topping isn't necessary. The second batch (the one I made with the nuts) did not have topping. Personally, I like it better without the topping. I did dust the pans with the sugar/cinnamon mixture for both batches. I didn't need to make up any more for the second batch. The 1/3 cup of sugar and 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon dusted all four pans and I still had enough for the topping you see in this picture. 

Bake at 325 degrees for one hour. I wanted to use my Sun Oven because the sun was quite bright the day I made these. However, it was very blustery! So much so that it reminded me of the children's book Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. With that much wind, the reflective panels can act like a sail and will tip the oven over! I learned this the hard way. Then you have an awful mess to clean up off the oven and the patio!  I opted for the kitchen oven. Mine needed to bake about 70 minutes. Here is what they will look like when done.

In this picture I have one pan from the first batch and both pans from the second batch. I used smaller pans for the second batch and had some left over so I used muffin tins for the remaining batter.

The quick bread is quite tasty! I am making a second batch of starter and with it I am going to bake double chocolate chip cupcakes and pumpkin bread!