Amish Friendship Cinnamon Bread

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I’ve been going through my old recipes lately, and I recently rediscovered a family favorite: Amish Friendship Cinnamon Bread.

This sweet quick bread is fun for kids to make and it has a way of bringing neighbors closer together. As long as you keep feeding your starter, you and your loved ones can have a tasty bread every few days.

Amish friendship cinnamon bread does take a few days to get going. You have to make a sweet starter, rather than a wild yeast sourdough starter. And as with any starter, you have to wait until those bubbles become active before you can bake your bread.

But I guarantee you that this bread is worth the wait.

Once you do have a starter, you can keep it going almost indefinitely. If you ever feel like putting your baking on hold for a while, you can freeze your starter and come back to it later.

It’s a win-win all around.

Time

Prep time:  30 Minutes
Rise time: None
Cook time:  60 Minutes
Total time: 1 Hour 30 Minutes (Plus Starter Build Time)

Ingredients

Starter

• 60 Grams Warm Water (1/4 Cup)
• 7 Grams Dry Active Yeast (2 Teaspoons)
• 150 Grams All-Purpose Flour (1 Cup)
• 200 Grams White Granulated Sugar (1 Cup)
• 240 Grams Milk (1 Cup)

Bread

• 300 Grams All-Purpose Flour (2 Cups)
• 200 Grams White Granulated Sugar (1 Cup)
• 5 Grams Ground Cinnamon (2 Teaspoons)
• 9 Grams Baking Powder (1 1/2 Teaspoons)
• 2 Grams Baking Soda (1/2 Teaspoons)
• 6 Grams Salt (1 Teaspoon)
• 240 Grams Vegetable Oil (1 Cup)
• 120 Grams Milk (1/2 Cup)
• 4 Grams Vanilla Extract (1 Teaspoon)
• 2 Large Eggs
• 520 Grams Amish Friendship Bread Starter (2 Cups)

Topping

• 50 Grams White Granulated Sugar (1/4 Cup)
• 2 Grams Ground Cinnamon (1 Teaspoon)

Additional Equipment

In addition to your average kitchen supplies, you’ll need a few unique items to make this Amish friendship cinnamon bread recipe:

• Ziploc Bag (Gallon Sized)
• Permanent Marker
• Measuring Cups, Bowls, and Spoons
• Kitchen Scale
• Two 9-inch X 5-inch Bread Pans
• Wire Cooling Rack
• Oven Mitts

Although you don’t need the Ziploc bag for making the actual bread, you will want it for keeping your sweet starter and for giving away the excess to your friends and family.

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Instructions

Amish Friendship Cinnamon Bread doesn’t follow your typical recipe. Rather than just dumping everything together and then baking it in the oven, you make something similar to a sourdough starter in a bag. After a few days, you’ll separate your starter into portions: the portions you give away to friends and a portion you keep for yourself.

Make Your Starter

To get things going, write the following instructions on your Ziploc bag:

• Day 1: Do Nothing
• Day 2: Mash the Bag
• Day 3: Mash the Bag
• Day 4: Mash the Bag
• Day 5: Mash the Bag
• Day 6: Add 150 Grams Flour (1 Cup), 200 Grams Sugar (1 Cup), 240 Grams Milk (1 Cup)
• Day 7: Mash the Bag
• Day 8: Mash the Bag
• Day 9: Mash the Bag
• Day 10: Pour entire bag into nonmetal bowl. Add 150 Grams Flour (1 Cup), 200 Grams Sugar (1 Cup), and 240 Grams Milk (1 Cup). Measure 260 Grams Starter (1 Cup) into 4 Ziploc bags. Give 3 bags away and keep 1 starter for yourself. With the remaining starter in the bowl, use it to make bread.

I know that’s a lot to write on one bag, but you can short-hand it if you wish, or just print the instructions and keep them close by.

Once you have your bag ready to hold your starter, it’s time to make the starter itself. Pour water, yeast, flour, sugar, and milk into a bag. Mash the ingredients together until they’re well combined.

Then follow the instructions on the bag, mashing the ingredients together each day. Don’t forget to feed your starter on Day 6, and once you’ve made it to Day 10, you’re ready to bake.

Make Your Bread

To bake your bread, preheat your oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit (162 degrees Celsius). In a large mixing bowl, whisk together your dry ingredients: flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In a small mixing bowl, whisk your wet ingredients: vegetable oil, milk, vanilla extract, eggs, and starter.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just moistened.

Line two 9-inch by 5-inch bread pans with parchment paper and lightly grease them. Then, divide the batter into the two pans.

In a smaller bowl, whisk together the cinnamon and sugar. Dust over the top of the batter in the pans.

Bake bread for 1 hour. Insert a toothpick into the center, and if it comes out clean, you’re done!

Use a butter knife to loosen the loaves from the sides of the pans, but don’t turn them out just yet! Let them cool for an hour in the pan before you lift them from the parchment paper and set them on a wire rack to finish cooling.

Serve and enjoy!

Assuming you keep starter for yourself, you can bake two loaves of bread about every 10 days. That’s plenty of bread to share with your family, friends, and neighbors.

Just the Basics

Secrets to Success

Amish Friendship Cinnamon Bread is a combination of a quick bread and a sourdough bread. The secret to making this recipe is to make sure your sweet starter is nice and bubbly for baking, and that you don’t overmix the ingredients.

When you overmix a quick bread, it tends to sink in the middle rather than expanding up. If you have difficulty with a sinking loaf, try to mix the batter until the ingredients are just moistened.

If you still struggle with a sinking loaf, try covering just the bottom of the pan with grease and not the sides. Letting the loaf stick to the sides of the pan will give the bread more support as it rises in the oven. Just use a butter knife to loosen the loaf from the sides after it has finished cooking.

What If I Don’t Want to Share?

This recipe is meant to be shared – that’s why it’s called “friendship” bread. It’s a big recipe, making two full loaves in addition to four bags of starter every 10 days.

However, I understand that your friends, family, or neighbors might not be into baking. Or maybe you’ve already given away so much starter and bread that it seems like it’s taking over your life.

If you don’t feel like sharing when you have four full bags of starter, you can do a few different things:

• Make more bread. Each bag will contain 1 cup of starter, enough to make one loaf of bread. If the original two loaves aren’t enough, go ahead and make another loaf or two with your excess.
• Make muffins. This recipe converts over to muffins perfectly. Instead of making one loaf, you can make 12 muffins with one of your bags of starter. Rather than baking at 350° Fahrenheit (176° Celsius) for 1 hour, you can cut your baking time to 25 to 30 minutes. If you’re not sure exactly how to do this, I have an Amish Friendship Cinnamon Muffin recipe on my personal blog.
• Freeze It. Feel free to freeze your excess starter. It should freeze safely for several months. When you are ready to bake again, allow the yeast to thaw for at least three hours before use. Then continue with the baking routine as normal.

Have more ways to use your starter? Please share them in the comment section below! I’d love to see more recipes that use my Amish friendship starter as a base.

Nutritional Information

Amish Friendship Cinnamon Bread has a lot of sugar, both in the batter itself and on top of the loaf. If you’re watching your blood sugar levels or counting your calories, you’ll want to eat smaller servings sizes.

I calculated the nutritional information based on the fact that I got 12 slices per loaf. Your nutritional information may vary if your slices are bigger or smaller than mine.

Did You Try It?

Amish Friendship Cinnamon Bread is a great way to introduce yourself to your neighbors. And it’s a fun way to keep in touch with friends and family. If you tried this recipe, let me know how it went. Do you have suggestions for making it even better?

Let me know in the comments below!