You Can't Be Mad Making Friendship Bread

My weekend is here (woot woot!).  I don't get real Saturday/Sunday weekends because I work retail and real weekends are a distant memory from a time when I still had a curfew and mom paid all the bills.  Thursday is the new Saturday anyway, didn't you get the memo?  I'll send you another.  Anyway, weekend means cleaning, laundry, and time to actually cook and bake.  I made a variation of Amish Friendship Bread and am here to share!

If you don't know what Friendship bread is then you, my friend, are missing out on some easy and delicious bread!  The easiest way to understand friendship bread is to think of it like a chain letter with delicious bread as a result instead of doom and gloom.  You're given a sourdough bread type of starter that you squish and mash around for 10 days before you bake a super tasty bread.

I have only encountered two problems in this adventure.  The biggest problem being that you divide up your dough into portions to give to family and friends and so if you choose to keep a starter for yourself, you are baking every ten days and piling up more and more starter bags for people that will start to run in the opposite direction (or lose their sense of seeing and hearing) when they see that Ziploc bag in your hand.  I'm serious.  I've seen it happen.

Well, I knew I would run into this problem from the start so after a few minutes on Google I found that you can freeze your starter so that A) you always have one on hand without having to go through the ten day process and B) you don't have to keep finding people to hand starter bags to.  I have only been through two rounds and I doubled up a couple of my starters the last time so that I could make double batches of stuff when I have a party to go to or if I feel the need to feed my co-workers.  So far, my freezer has not been over-run with starters.

The other problem I ran into is that I knew that I would get tired of the regular recipe of bread.  As wonderful and tasty as it is, I (and more importantly my husband who has to suffer indulge my cooking ventures and who doesn't eat leftovers easily) like variety.  I found this awesome website, the Friendship Bread Kitchen, that has tons and tons of variations of what to do with your dough.  I made chocolate chip muffins that were awesome.  Today, I decided to make Banana Nut Friendship Bread.

You can find the full recipe here.  I only made a few minor adjustments:  I added 3 bananas instead of 2 because I had three and on hand and didn't want to be wasteful.  I had to add a stick of butter to make up for the fact that I only had 1/2 a cup of oil on hand and no applesauce (grocery time!).  I added about a tablespoon of cinnamon and 1/2 tablespoon of nutmeg just because I love the combo. 

I sprinkled the tops with cinnamon and sugar.  You do this in the regular Friendship bread recipe and I really liked the outcome.  I only made 1 loaf of bread and the rest was turned into a dozen muffins.  I baked the muffins for 30 minutes.  The loaf baked for about an hour and fifteen minutes.

Not only did the house smell amazing but the end results were moist and delicious!  These will make a great breakfast or late night snack!  I think these would be even more fabulous with chocolate chips in them because let's be honest, what isn't better with chocolate chips?

Got a Friendship bread story or recipe?  Share in the comments below!  I'd love to hear what people are doing with their starters.  Word on the street (aka the recipe collection from Friendship Bread Kitchen) is that waffles, cookies, and cinnamon rolls can be made from the starter.  Who's in?