The Sincere Tradition Behind Amish Friendship Bread

Every food has a backstory, including the traditional Amish recipe for friendship bread. If you've ever tried this bread, you know that its sweet, cinnamon-y flavor is well worth the time and love that are poured into it. But did you know that this bread has an even sweeter story that will leave you wanting to make loaf after loaf?

According to Friendship Bread Kitchen, friendship bread begins with a starter made from water, flour, milk, sugar, and yeast (similar to a sourdough starter). This starter typically takes about 10 days to ferment. Once it's ready, you can use it for baking the famous Amish sweetened bread topped with cinnamon sugar, which many claims taste similar to pound cake or coffee cake.

From start to finish, the bread requires specific, step-by-step instructions. It symbolizes friendship with the time and effort that goes into preparing a gift for someone you love.

As with so many recipes, the origins of Amish friendship bread aren't entirely clear. According to NPR, Anne Byrn, who researched hundreds of recipes for her book "American Cake," says that Amish friendship bread is similar to a European recipe called Herman Friendship Cake. Byrn explains that friendship bread and cake recipes can be dated back to the 1860s, with pioneer women feeding their starters as they traveled and sharing it with other women throughout their journey.

However, according to Byrn, Amish friendship bread as we know it today didn't gain popularity until the Depression era. Many people used friendship bread starter as a resourceful way to share bread with other women in the community during a time when resources were hard to come by.

But how exactly did it make its way into the Amish community? The Amish Furniture Factory says that according to "The Amish Cook" by Elizabeth Coblentz, Amish friendship bread is a popular and simple bread that can be found on the tables of many Amish homes. To the Amish, this free starter can be shared with others in the community, especially the sick and needy, to make fresh, homemade bread recipes. Plus, it can be passed down from person to person, becoming a special gift that keeps on giving.

Making Amish friendship bread can seem intimidating because it requires more than a week to make. But rest assured, it's not as bad as it seems. Ideally, to make friendship bread, you'd be given some goopy starter and a recipe to go with it. However, there are recipes that exist for making it from scratch.

After feeding the starter for 10 days, you would divide it into four portions, one for baking with and the rest to give to friends and family, as explained by Friendship Bread Kitchen. If you don't want to make your friendship bread right away, you can store the starter in the freezer, per Allrecipes.

The idea is that the older the starter, the better, which is why this recipe is passed down from person to person — even generation to generation. It can be the perfect gift for friends, family, co-workers, and more. Whether it's a Christmas present or simply a way to show your loved ones how much they mean to you, this bread is a sweet and meaningful gift.