A twist on the classic Amish Friendship Bread…

I arrived to show Kenniston Hill Inn in Boothbay, Maine and the innkeeper just made a loaf of Amish Cinnamon Bread. If you haven’t heard of that before, it’s a starter that apparently only the Amish can create. It’s a chain letter of sorts but with food. It’s passed on and on… It was similar to a cinnamon coffee cake and felt heavy but didn’t taste heavy. It’s a great cake to go with tea or coffee. And my favorite coffee has long been Rock City Roasters in Rockland, Maine. I now have a second favorite, Bard Coffee in Portland, Maine.

So I left there with a starter batch and instructions on caring for it for the following 9 days before turning it into a sweet bread with a texture similar to banana bread. And because it’s my nature to take a recipe and change it to make it my own, that’s what I did. I’ll give you both the original recipe and my recipe.

So you’ve been given a starter bag… Here are your instructions:

Note: Do not use wood or metal spoon, bowl or pan, glass or plastic only; do NOT refrigerate, it’s normal for the batter to bubble, rise and ferment, just let the air out and zip the bag again.

• Day 1 you receive your bag, just let it sit and label it Day 1
• Day 2 mush the  bag, let the air out
• Day 3 repeat
• Day 4 repeat
• Day 5 repeat
• Day 6 add to the bag: 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk, mix well
• Day 7 mush the bag, let the air out
• Day 8 repeat
• Day 9 repeat
• Day 10 follow the instructions below:

1. Pour the contents of the bag into a large glass or plastic bowl.
2. Add 1.5 cups flour, 1.5 cups sugar, 1.5 cups milk, whisk well.
3. Label four 1 gallon Ziploc bags with “Day 1″ and date. Fill each bag with 1 cup of the starter mixture. Pass three along to others and keep one for yourself.
4. Preheat oven to 325
5. To the remaining batter (the one you’ve kept):

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup oil
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 cups flour
• 1 large box instant vanilla pudding

Grease two large loaf pans. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar in the pan to dust the inside. Pour batter evenly into the pans and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake for about an hour, until a toothpick comes out clean.

NOW, for MY variation:

I substituted chocolate pudding for vanilla pudding; I omitted the baking soda and the cinnamon in the batter and I put the batter into two 10 inch round scalloped edge baking dishes. I added a ring of chocolate chips, cranberries, pecans and several dollops of cinnamon filling to the center. Then baked them for about 50 minutes and cut into wedges. I tasted it warm and cool and both were very good. I suspect that by leaving out the baking soda, the baking powder alone allowed the cake to be a bit more airy and rise more than it would with baking soda as well. The texture of this cake was a cross between a coffee cake and a devils food cake.

ENJOY!

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