Traditional Tuesdays: Amish Friendship Bread

Last night I went the month meeting of our area’s version of Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS). It was our Christmas celebration and one of my friends at the table gave us all a container of Amish Friendship Bread Starter. YAY! I had starter going about a year ago, but with everything going, I forgot to feed it, so it died off. I now have a chance to redeem myself with this new batch.

Today is day one for the starter, for the next four days it will be stirred. On Friday I get to feed it a cup each of flour, milk and sugar. Then for 4 more days it is stirred. On Wednesday the 21st, I feed it again with flour, sugar and milk. Then I get to make the bread just in time for Christmas. I think I am going to feed it a mixture of whole wheat and white flours and eventually move it all to whole wheat.

I am also going to be selfish and not give any away this time. I may actually feed it double the next couple of times to build up the starter so I have enough to make 4 loaves for the family each time I make it.

Here is the recipe I use to make two loaves of the bread. 

1 cup Amish Friendship Bread Starter
2/3 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour (or 1/2 whole wheat)
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease 2 (9×5 inch) loaf pans.
2.In a large bowl, combine the ingredients. Mix well. Pour into prepared loaf pans.
3.Bake in preheated oven for 50 to 60 minutes. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes and then remove from pan and finish cooling.

Enjoy!

Pax Christi!

 

A married woman must often leave God at the altar in order to find Him in her housework ~~St. Francis of Rome

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Traditional Thursday

One of the things we like to do around the holidays is bake cookies. Today I am going to take the day and get the recipes out that we make and write out the list for what we need to purchase to make our goodies.

We make a several types of cookies.  It is quite an eclectic mix. Some of the cookies get baked a couple of times during the season.  They are a quick go to hostess gift.  I pick up a couple of dollar store Christmas plates, some red to green colored saran warp and some curling ribbon.  They we pile up the plate, wrap and go to our events.

Here is the list we are making this year.

Sooper Dooper Bars. They are similar to seven layer bars, but they are more like five layer bars. We omit the butterscotch chips and the nuts.

Chocolate Crinkles.  These are so fudgy and good.  Just don’t over bake or they turn into hockey pucks.

Peanut Blossoms.  These are the family favorite.  Peanut butter and chocolate. Yummmm!

Chocolate Fudge.  I make a family recipe similar to this.  Is so good.

Sugar Cookies.  These are so simple.  We don’t roll and cut shapes, we just roll in holiday sugars.

Fattigmann. These are wonderful, airy, crispy goodness. Just before serving, I dust them with confectioner’s sugar.  And I don’t fry them in lard, just plain old vegetable oil. 

Chocolate Chips.  The old fashioned family favorite!

Snickerdoodles.  Another family favorite!  Cinnamon sugar on a sugar cookie, who can complain about that?

Molasses Cookies.  Another cookies that conjures up vision of sitting in front of the fire with a cup of hot cocoa.

What treats are you and your family making this year?

Pax Christi,


A married woman must often leave God at the altar in order to find Him in her housework ~~St. Francis of Rome

Going Bananas.

I was away at mom’s off and on for two weeks.  Before I headed back for a long stretch, I did some shopping.  Everything was unpacked and put away.  We have to hide the bananas in the house because I have 5 year olds that will just help themselves, not to mention the 11 year olds and the 13 year old.  So I put them up out of site.  Before I left, I picked up to bunches.  While straightening the kitchen today, I found the bananas.  OOPS!  I know have two bunches that need to be made into something.

So I pulled out recipe most of my family loves (the only one who doesn’t can’t have bananas because of her allergy). AND it makes 2 loaves, which is always a plus for our family.

Math tomorrow will be multiplication in real life. 

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
1 cup Butter
2 cups Sugar
2 Eggs
3 Very Ripe Bananas
3 Cups Flour (I use half whole wheat, half white)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease 2 9 x 5 inch loaf pans. In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Stir in bananas. Mix together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda (I use a whisk). Blend the flour mixture into the banana mixture, stirring just enough to combine. Fold in the chips and walnuts.


Bake at 350 until a toothpick inserted into the center of the load comes out clean, 50 – 75 minutes. Cool in the pan for 20 minutes. Remove from the pan, then cool completely on a wire rack.  Then enjoy!


Pax Christi,

A married woman must often leave God at the altar in order to find Him in her housework ~~St. Francis of Rome

Sad update at the zoo

As we were expecting, the last wild bunny passed away this evening. Everyone is very sad. It is hard explaining to the four year olds about death. We told them that Gramps was going to take care of the baby bunnies for us. I hope that was a gentle way to explain it to them and won’t cause permanent scars later in life.

Mandy is very much like I am. When I get upset I cook, she bakes. So we have some wonderful desserts for Easter now.   We have 2 apple pies and 2 chocolate pudding pies.

She also gets adventurous and looks for new recipes.  Since we had so many apple peels, she looked for ideas to use up apple peels.  She found a neat one: apple jelly that uses apple peels and cores.

We will let you know how it turns out.  It is still cooling right now, so we are hoping that it sets up.

My big tough husband was very upset about the loss of the babies and didn’t like that the rest of the zoo was so sad. So he and I took a road trip this evening. 

Meet the newest member of the zoo:  Hop.  A cute little grey bunny.  He is settling in nicely and all the other zoo mates are loving having a new member of the family.

Pax Christi!

A married woman must often leave God at the altar in order to find Him in her housework ~~St. Francis of Rome