Also known as, A Lesson in ‘No, thanks’.
There is another sweet older lady that lives downstairs. Not the crazy one with lipstick on her teeth, but a sweet one that brings toys for Otis (she used to watch kids) and gave us a loaf of bread at Christmas.
That loaf of bread happend to be Amish Friendship Bread. It was delicious. Well, last week she came upstairs to give us a bag of blocks and a blanket and she asked about the bread.
Me: It was wonderful!
Mark: I didn’t get any…
Me: Ya snooze, ya lose…
Neighbor Lady: Would you like your own starter? You can make some for yourself…
Inside my head: Oh dear. I don’t even know where our oven is…
Me: Um, duh! I love baking! You do bake it… right?
Neighbor Lady: Yes, you’ll have to bake it by Saturday. That’s Day 10. You just add some basic ingredients…
Inside my head and totally not listening to Neighbor Lady: Crapcrapcrap. Ingredients? I don’t have ingredients! I wonder if there are microwave directions…
Me: Yeah, I think we have all of that! Yeah, this will be great!
Neighbor Lady: Great! I’ll go get the starter for you.
Crap. “No, thanks! I don’t know where the oven is” would have been a much better answer, but no. I had to offer myself up to the Amish Friendship Bread altar.
Mark: You’re going to bake?
Me: Duh.
Mark: …
He don’t know me.
Neighbor Lady: Here’s the starter (hands me a ziplock bag of liquid) and the recipe. And don’t worry, if you lose the starter the recipe for it is on the second page.
Inside my head: Lose the starter? It can run away? Is it not dead yet? Crapcrapcrap.
Me: Thanks! I can’t wait until Saturday! Or should I say Baker Day! Ha!
Oh dear.
It was a Wednesday night. I had 2 days until B-day. Until Saturday the only thing I had to do was “Mush the bag”. Easy enough, right?
Mark: Did you mush your bag today?
Me: Crap.
Mark: Are you sure you want to do this? We can give it to my mom…
Me: I GOT THIS.
Baker Day finally got here and I realized it was do or die. I mushed my bag and started reading the directions. For the first time. I read the directions (past “Mush the bag”) FOR THE FIRST TIME.
Me: Do we have flour?
Mark: I think so.
Me: Salt?
Mark: Yes.
Me: Eggs?
Mark: Ummm… yeah. We have some…I think.
Me: Whatever it probably isn’t important.
So I got started. Here’s the thing, the only motivation that I had to make this bread was to get it off of my counter. I thought, “I’ll make it, be done and move on with life”.
But that’s not how Amish Friendship Bread works.
The very first thing you do with Amish Friendship Bread is make 4 more starters. FOUR MORE STARTERS, PEOPLE. I went from having one bag of liquid bread to having four. If I read the directions all the way through I might have been able to stop it, but psh. Reading directions is for wusses.
After I scooped out the 4 starters, it was time to make the actual bread.
Me: Oh, crap. This thing needs instant vanilla pudding.
Mark: We have some!
Me: No, we have instant lemon pudding. And we have cook & serve chocolate pudding. Where did we get all of this pudding?
After a lengthy discussion about the difference between instant and cook & serve and whether we’d rather eat lemon Amish Bread or chocolate Amish Bread we decided to go with cook & seve chocolate pudding.
At this point Mark decided to tag team with me. I had most of the ingredients out and ready to go, but I guess I sounded like I was having so much fun that he just needed to get in on the action.
Mark: Cinnamon? Do you think we should put it in there?
Me: Why not?
Mark: Cinnamon and chocolate?
Me: You’re right. Take it out.
Mark: We only have 2 eggs. It wants 3.
Me: Uh oh.
Mark: Eh, they’re large eggs.
Me: Make it work.
By the end of it all we had taken out the cinnamon, replaced instant vanilla pudding with cook & serve chocolate pudding and used 2 (large) eggs instead of 3. Oh, and since we don’t have loaf pans we put them in a large rectangle pan and a circle pan. Needless to say, before we put the bread in the oven we said a prayer. Or two.
And that’s why, as we search for a house, I consider a kitchen completely optional.
Also, the Amish Friendship BrownieBread was actually kind of awesome. In the name of Jesus.
This whole thing made me laugh really hard. Chocolate bread sounds wonderful, actually. haha.
It’s been like 2 weeks and it’s still pretty tasty 🙂
Sounds like you two had fun and got to eat it too!! Congratulations!!
Thanks! And we did have fun!
If I wasn’t on stinkin bedrest, I would actually ask for one of the starters. I am all about trying new stuff…and bread sounds oh so delicious and not greasy. Lol
We have lots of crazy stuff at my house but we don’t have any instant pudding. I would have to get that, but sounds like we have everything else!
Good luck tomorrow! 🙂
I’ve already texted you. No making bread for you, but I might drop by so you can taste my experiment :p