Part of the fun of the Friendship Bread Kitchen is helping you find new and flavorful ways to use a cup of Amish Friendship Bread starter. And while baking is cathartic in many ways, there are times you want to do the bare minimum so you can get on with your day.
Enter the bread machine.
I’m excited about this recipe because it simplifies everything. There’s no big mess to clean up or risk of burning down the house (confession: I have wandered away from my kitchen more than once to look up from my desk an hour later and wonder what that burning smell was). Better yet, you can program your bread machine to bake at whatever time you want so it’s ready when you are.
It’s not foolproof, though, and every bread machine is different so be prepared to experiment with a loaf or two. But once you get it figured out, it’s bliss.
The bread machine paddle does leave a gash at the bottom two inches of your bread, but that’s a small price to pay in exchange for saving you some serious elbow grease. The original Amish Friendship Bread recipe works great, but heavy add-ins may sink to the bottom. You can toss them in flour (which some people say doesn’t work, but I’ve had great luck with this) or add them towards the end. Whatever you decide to do, using your bread machine is a quick and easy way to use up a bag of starter and keep a loaf of Amish Friendship Bread on hand.
Bread Machine Amish Friendship Bread
Ingredients
- 1 cup Amish Friendship Bread Starter
- 3 eggs
- 2/3 cup oil
- ¼ cup milk
- 1 cup sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 2 cups flour
- 2 small boxes instant pudding
Instructions
- Add all the wet ingredients into the bread machine pan.
- Then add in dry ingredients.
- Set bread machine on Sweet Bread setting, light crust.
- During the last 30 minutes of baking, lift lid and quickly add on top of bread a mixture of ¼ cup sugar and ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon.
- When finished baking, leave in bread machine for 20 minutes.
- Remove from baking pan and put loaf on a cooling rack.
- ENJOY!
Notes
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An you use bread flour
No matter how I mix my Amish Friendship Bread, I bake 2 huge loaves (like the equivalent of 4 normal loaves) and I bake them in aluminum half cake pans in the oven and they take like 2 hours to bake completely. Any suggestions?
My bread machine doesn’t have a sweet bread setting. I used the basic white bread mode and came out with great tasting bread pudding. Any suggestions for how I can make a loaf of bread instead? Maybe I should hand-mix the ingredients and use the bake only setting? If so, how long?
If you have a cake setting, that would probably work better instead of the white bread setting. You could also choose a medium crust, and/or cut the recipe in half. Let us know if that helps!
Omg. I just added everything to my machine only to find out I don’t have a sweet bread setting. I have a “batter bread” setting. I hope it turns out!
Hope everything turned out well, Diane! ❤️
I have both a cake setting and a sweet bread setting on my machine. Which one am I supposed to use?
Ooh, if you have a sweet bread function, that’s the one to use! Many of the older ones don’t have that option. Keep us posted with how it turns out, Holly!
I have dozens of AFB recipes in many different flavors. My favorite is butterscotch!! Besides this basic, plain AFB recipe, can I make the other flavors in the bread machine? If so, do I convert the liquids to the amounts in this recipe? Any other advice for different flavors/add-ins? (Nuts, baking chips, dried fruits, rhubarb, apples, etc).
Hi Brenda! You’ll have to experiment, but as long as it follows the basics of this recipe, it should work fine. Some machines have a fruit or nut cycle if you’re putting some add-ins, which will beep 30-40 minutes after you start the cycle to alert you to put your in additions. Let us know how it goes!
What size loaf does it make? My bread machine does pound and half and 2 pounders
Hi Rosemarie! This recipe makes about a one-and-a-half pound loaf. Happy baking!
If I want to use buttermilk instead of the starter to this bread machine recipe, how much buttermilk do you recommend? Also do I add yeast?
Hi Gayle! I haven’t tried the no-starter recipe in the bread machine, so I can’t say. I think the key here is to reduce the amount of liquids (from a recipe that would go into an oven), and as you can see we only use ¼ cup of milk + 1 cup of starter (and less oil). Since you’re not using the starter you’d have to replace it with a similar proportion as what’s in the no-starter recipe, but you may have to tinker a bit to get the flavor right. Please let me know how it turns out!
Can I use my starter from my freezer or do I have to Feed it first?
Hi Tara,
If you gave your starters a good feeding the day before you froze them (or on the day you froze them), then no. If you didn’t, or you don’t remember, let it thaw at room temperature and see if there is any activity. If there is, then you can bake with it. If not, try a Day 6 feeding. It helps to have a robust starter at the time you freeze it, too. Hope this helps!
Possibly a silly question, but do you mix the dry and wet ingredients when you put them in the bread maker, or do you just layer them?
Just add it all in, Stephanie! That’s the beauty of it! 🙂
I can’t wait to try this!!
Any advice for a substitute for the pudding?
Hi there, CowgirlAmerica! The instant pudding gives the bread a flavor boost and keeps it moist. One of the wonderful things about Amish Friendship Bread is that you can make a lot of substitutions, additions or deletions, including leaving out the pudding altogether. We do have a homemade pudding recipe (which you would add to the recipe dry, not cooked) if you want to include pudding but otherwise most recipes work without it. Hope this answers your question, and if you have any more questions feel free to post them or check out our FAQs page. Happy baking!
What flavor of pudding are you supposed to use?
Vanilla!
I love this site, this I will be using this. Give me a reason to pull out my breadman!
Question….when you make the ‘starter’ do I use a cup right out of the first batch to make this recipe? Or do I have to wait the ten days and add all the other stuff? I have the starter ready — it’s day one.
If you received the starter from someone else, you can use it on Day 1 but you probably won’t have any left over as generally only 1 cup is passed on to another person. If you made the starter from scratch, I recommend waiting the 10 days so your starter has a chance to build some flavor. You’ll also have enough starter left over to store, bake or share. Hope this helps, Heather!
Thank you for the instructions and all of the comments. I will definitely try my starter in my bread machine. I will share my results it I am successful. 🙂
Great! Good luck, Minnie!
I set my bread machine to the highest setting but I also combined the flour, bs, bp and oil together and the rest of the wet ingredients I beat together – then I added the pudding and the sugar and then the flour mix all together. This makes it come out as dough and a whole lot less wet.
I also took the paddle out of the bottom of the bread pan and it came out a whole lotta better!!!
where do you get the starter?
I think it has the starter recipe elsewhere on the site but it’s active yeast plus milk plus sugar plus flour(basic sourdough which I’m converting from was water plus flour plus time or having a kick start)
This was aowesme. Love your blog!
I used the sweet bread setting. Maybe mine doesn’t get hot enough? It is 11 years old.
Recipe was good
ya i have prepared it — was so tasty!
Looks great!