Saturday, January 3, 2009

A Very Tasty Chain Letter

A friend of ours gave us the tastiest chain letter ever for Christmas.... Amish Friendship Bread. I knew nothing of this bread before a couple of weeks ago, so I had no idea what I was in for. She presented us with a beautiful box with a loaf of the most delicious "bread" ever, a bag of starter, and some instructions. First, this is no bread... it's cake. Delicious cake, full of cinnamon and sugar. And, it's not terrible Amish, at least not this version it's not. I mean, it calls for using a plastic bag for storage and mixing and instant pudding mix as one of the final ingredients. For 10 days, you mush the bag of starter, add some stuff, and mush some more. On the 10th day, you add lots more stuff and you end up with 4 more bags of starter and enough batter for two more loaves of "bread". The instructions say that you are supposed to give away 3 of the starters and keep one for yourself because it's a secret Amish recipe that may never come back around to you again... dah dah dummmmmm.  Of course, a quick google and you'll have the recipe for the starter in about 2 seconds - along with a host of websites praising and complaining about the AFB. It hadn't occurred to me that not everyone would be as thrilled as me to get it. There were plenty of blog posts from people who weren't, including a not-so culinary inclined woman who had been given a starter that was several days along and it exploded on her desk. So, since most of the people I think would enjoy it live not so close by, I just gave one bag to my mother in law (she rocks at baking) and froze the rest. I could potentially have this stuff the rest of my life. Forever.
 

2 comments:

idyll hands said...

Beware - you'll pack on 5 pounds before you throw that stuff out! :) I was hooked a few years ago and made and made and made the stuff. Then I got stomach flu and the smell of the yeast in the bag did me in - so away it went.

I still long for some of that bread (but don't you dare send me starter).

Junque Rethunque said...

NO!! don't send her a starter, cuz then she'll give me one, and I'll find something disgusting in my refrigerator six months from now.