Amish Friendship Bread

This is the first time I ever received a baking chain letter or sorts. This Amish Friendship Bread tradition was passed down to me by a couple co-workers. Let me tell you, it is a very curious thing to come into work and find a ziploc bag of some kind of batter on your desk. Of course, you don't know it's really batter until you read the recipe that is hiding underneath the bag. I was very curious and actually very excited to try it out once I found out what it was! It's based off of the concept of "the mother dough". A dough that doesn't need refrigeration at all - all it needs is to be fed and separated and passed along. I heard about this dough from sourdough documentaries on the Food Network but never for something like this.

First time I tried it, I absolutely failed! I missed the day for cooking...missed it by several days actually. Then I thought I could FREEZE it to save it...WRONG. the mixture completely separated and I couldn't get it to get back together again. So I threw it out and calle myself a failure. Then I got another starter from another co-worker who felt sorry for me and then I was finally sucessful. My husband and I enjoyed the cake so much, that I made it a couple more times - getting a bit obsessive with the variations trying a Pumpkin version and then a really Chocolately version that my co-worker had tried before. All Yummy! Though it was probably not a good idea to bake all these cakes when you're pregnant...I think my baby is now part Amish because of my experiments...