Today is, finally, day 10 of the mostly uneventful saga of the Amish Friendship Bread starter. The batter has frothed, been dragged around by my kittens, been properly fed and stirred and generally made part of my kitchen smell yeasty. Today, after another feeding of milk, sugar and flour, the batter is separated into four new starter batches. The process will begin anew, hopefully, with some of my friends.

In the meantime, three bags of new starter are sitting in my freezer. Past experience, and the fact that my own starter was previously-frozen, tells me that the freezer will do no harm to the batter - it should just stop the fermentation process until the batter is thawed. I decided to freeze them because I won't be able to give away the batter tomorrow, and one of the bags will be shipped cross-country to my dear blog co-author, Andrea.

The remaining starter, slightly over a cup, now gets to be made into bread! Using the recipe posted on Day 1 of this cooking adventure, I made the starter into bread batter. I have to wonder, though, about the ingredients. Do the Amish really use instant vanilla pudding in recipes? Anyway, the bread batter is thick and creamy, about the consistency of a typical quickbread. My first plan was to make one loaf in the standard cinnamon-vanilla flavor, and one chocolate. But today I feel anti-chocolate, so vanilla it is. Also, that's easier and I'm lazy.

The end result is a cinnamon bread with a very light flavor and a crunchy top crust. It's very tasty, and would be lovely with a cup of coffee for breakfast. I had expected something with a slight sourdough flavor, due to the fermentation process, but there's not a sign of that at all. Still, I wonder what other breads I could use the starter for. I'll need to do some research on that later.

For now, I shall enjoy my bread and coffee.

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