Spice Cake Made With Amish Friendship Bread Starter With Maple Frosting and my latest sewing projects!

My sweet hubby ripped out another pair of jeans, and instead of throwing them away I decided to make something out of them, so here's what I came up with!



These are some of the pot holders I made the other day. The pockets can be used to make it an oven mitt! I used some old towels for the batting and my sweet hubby's old jeans for the backs! I made these by cutting the print fabric a little bigger than the jean fabric, then turned the print down twice and top-stitched.


I made these a little different, I sewed them right sides together, then turned them right side out and top-stitched.


Then I got to thinking that circles would be fun, so I made these by tracing a salad plate, then I sewed the right sides together, turned them and top-stitched. They were fun to make! I used some vintage fabric on these.

This is Sloan modeling the apron and pot holders I made for the neighbor girl's bridal shower. The apron is lined and has lots of rick rack trim! The potholders are made with denim from my sweet hubbies old jeans and old towels for the batting. I love recycling something!

I think I'll make some more pot holders for Christmas presents as soon as I can get my sweet hubby to give up some more of his holey jeans!

Now head on over to Between Naps On The Porch to see what everyone else is up to!




I needed to use my Amish Friendship Bread starter, and I came up with this recipe. We love a good spice cake. My mother always liked to put maple frosting on a spice cake. If you don't have maple extract you could probably make this with maple syrup in place of the milk and maple flavoring.

Spice Cake Made With Amish Friendship Bread Starter With Maple Frosting

1 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup Amish Friendship Bread Starter
2 cups flour, I add another 3 tablespoons because of High Altitude
1/2 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cloves, we like a lot of spices, I added 1 teaspoon
2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon, I added 2 teaspoons
1/2 teaspoon cardamom

Maple Frosting

4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup milk, you might need a little more
1 teaspoon maple flavoring

In a mixer beat the shortening and sugar for 3-5 minutes. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. In another bowl measure all the dry ingredients and whisk until well mixed. In another bowl stir together the milk and the Amish Friendship Bread Starter. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk mixture. Mix well. Pour into a greased 9x13 inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes. Cool cake in the pan on a wire rack. When cool, frost.

For Frosting

Mix all the ingredients in a mixer. Frost cooled cake

Amish Friendship Bread Starter Quick Biscuits

I was thumbing through one of my cookbooks and I found a recipe for Quick Sourdough Biscuits and I decided to give it a try with my Amish Friendship Bread Starter, because it's pretty much the same thing as a sourdough starter. These biscuits only have a cup of flour and they were really easy to make. My family loves breakfast sandwiches, so I made them into egg, cheese and bacon biscuits. The texture of these biscuits is really nice, and I think I'll be making them a lot!







My sweet husband bought me two of these cute little cast iron frying pans a few years ago, and they are perfect for cooking an egg for a breakfast sandwich!



Amish Friendship Bread Starter Quick Biscuits

1 cup flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup shortening
1 cup Amish Friendship Bread Starter

Measure all the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and whisk to mix. Cut in the shortening with a pastry blender. With a wooden spoon, mix in the Amish Friendship Bread Starter, until just mixed. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for 30 seconds. Pat out and cut into circles. Place on a cookie sheet and bake at 425 for 15 - 20 minutes or until browned.

Amish Friendship Bread Starter Pancakes

My kids love pancakes, so I thought I'd come up with one using my Amish Friendship Bread Starter. These turned out nice and fluffy, and the kids loved them! My sweet husband gave them the thumbs up too! My daughter decided she wanted syrup and whipped cream on hers. My kids get up at 5:30am every weekday morning to go to swim team, so they like lots of carbs for breakfast. They train hard for 1 1/2 hours, so they're usually hungry when they get home too!






Amish Friendship Bread Starter Pancakes

1 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup Amish Friendship Bread Starter
2 tablespoons oil
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Measure the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and whisk with a wire whisk. Add the wet ingredients and whisk just until mixed. Fry on hot greased griddle.

Yogurt Chocolate Cake made with Amish Friendship Bread Starter

I got tired of my Amish Friendship Bread Starter being in a zip lock bag on my cupboard so I put it in a crock that has a lid. It looks kind of gross in a baggy, and sometimes it would leak. It's hard to explain to people why you have this goo in a ziplock bag that's full of air! It's not even noticeable now! I just give it a stir every day, and it's working great! I use to keep a sour dough starter this way, they are pretty forgiving! Sometimes I forget to add the flour, sugar and milk on the right day, but it works to add it even the day you want to use it. And, you can use it everyday if you want, just don't use it all, and add some more flour, sugar and milk to it.


This is a really nice fudgy dense cake. The kids are gobbling it up!

Yogurt Chocolate Cake Made With Amish Friendship Bread Starter

1/2 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup yogurt (you can use sour cream)
2 eggs
12 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup Amish Friendship Bread Starter
2 cups flour
Fluffy Chocolate Frosting

Beat sugar and shortening, add vanilla, yogurt and eggs, beat well. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the Amish Friendship Bread Starter. Bake in a greases 9x13 pan at 350 for 30 - 40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. When Cool frost with Fluffy Chocolate Frosting.
Fluffy Chocolate Frosting

6 tablespoons butter
4 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 1 /2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 cup to 1/3 cup milk

Whip all the ingredients starting with 1/4 cup milk, and add more if you need it to make a good spreading consistency. Frost cooled cake.

Brownies Made With Amish Friendship Bread Starter and a contest

Meet our new friend Bella! We're doggie sitting for her while her family is away for a few weeks. She's an English Sheep dog. She's really big! She is fun to have around, she's very gentle and loves playing with our two Mini Schnauzer's! My kids just love her!


This is Bella's kennel. The kids thought it looked like a fun place to hang out! Bella doesn't seem to mind sharing her kennel! Don't worry, they can unlatch it themselves!









My daughter Sloan wanted me to come up with a recipe for brownies with the Amish Friendship Bread Starter. So I played around a little in the kitchen and came up with these brownies. They are a little different because they have oil in them, and not as much cocoa powder as my other brownie recipe, but they bake up with a good chocolate flavor and they're really moist and good!


Brownies Made With Amish Friendship Bread Starter

3/4 cup oil
6 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup Amish Friendship Bread Starter
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Pour into a greased 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes. Cool and cut.

The sides rose up a lot, but that's the good part!


Head over to sweetlifeinthevalley@gmail.com and enter her contest to win a tuffet pillow! Just answer all her questions, and you could win! Good luck!

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies made with Amish Friendship Bread Starter, and make your own starter!

It was time to use my Amish Friendship Bread Starter again, so I decided to come up with something different, and of course I thought of chocolate! This time I decided I wanted a double chocolate cookie. Have you noticed that I make a lot of chocolate things? Yup, I do, it always goes over well at our hose. Well, I played around a little and came up with this recipe.

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies made with Amish Friendship Bread Starter

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs
1 cup Amish Friendship Bread Starter
2 cups flour
6 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Cream the shortening and the sugar. Beat in the eggs and the Amish Friendship Bread Starter. Mix in the dry ingredients, then the chocolate chips. Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes.

If you don't have a starter and you want to make one in a bowl mix -

Amish Friendship Bread Starter

1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
Put 1 cup stater into into 1 (1 gallon) ziploc bag. Do 3 bags total. Now you can give 2 away and keep one. Don't forget to put the date on it.

Here's the directions for how to keep the starter -

Day 1 - Do nothing
Day 2 - Mush the bag
Day 3 - Mush the bag
Day 4 - Mush the bag
Day 5 - Mush the bag
Day 6 - Add to the bag: 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk - mush the bag
Day 7 - Mush the bag
Day 8 - Mush the bag
Day 9 - Mush the bag
Day 10 - Mix and divide starter

****Pour entire contents of bag into a not-metal bowl
****Add and mix well: 1 1/2 cups milk, 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 1/2 cups sugar
****Measure out 1 cup of mixture into 4 separate 1 gallon Ziploc bags
****Keep 1 bag for yourself (You'll need to use it every 10 days, if you can't that's ok, it's pretty forgiving, you can let it go a few days, just keep mushing, then mix and divide. If you need to go on vacation, you can refrigerate it or freeze it)

Amish Friendship Cookies, Oatmeal Chocolate Chip and a Craft!

Do you have one of these bags sitting around? A kind friend might of given you a bag of Amish Friendship Bread starter and your tired of making bread? Well, I was! So I did a little research and found a recipe, then I tweaked it some until it turned into a pretty decent tasting cookie. If you get to tired of the starter, you can give a rest in the fridge. I put mine in for 3 weeks when I went to help my daughter when she had a baby this winter. I've also forgotten to add to it on day 10 and it's survived. Just remember to mush the bag, and it will forgive you!







Amish Friendship Cookies Oatmeal Chocolate Chip

1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup shortening
1 tablespoon molasses
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup starter
2 cups flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups oatmeal
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup chocolate chips
Cream brown sugar and shortening, add eggs, vanilla and molasses. Mix well, add starter, flours and oatmeal, mixing well. Add chocolate chips and stir well. Drop by cookie scoop onto cookie sheets and flatten a little with your fingers, unless you like them puffy. Bake at 350 degrees for 14 minutes. Remove to cookie cooler racks.

Starter Recipe

1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
Put in glass bowl or jar or large ziploc bag-stir or moosh until well blended. Let stand at room temp for 5 days, stir or moosh each day. On day 6 add 1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour, and 1 cup milk, stir or moosh until blended. Let stand at room temp for 4 more days, stirring or mooshing each day. On Day 10 you should have enough for 3, 1 cup starters to give away plus 1 to use for your recipe.

Comments
*The starter DOES freeze! I wouldn't freeze it for more than 2-3 months.

Brown Sugar Body Scrub

I've been making my own Brown Sugar Body scrub for a long time. I just came up with the amounts, not really measuring. I've told friends about it, but they wanted to know how much olive oil and brown sugar, so I made some today and measured! It makes a pretty little gift for someone too! I like to use a plastic bottle, in case you drop it in the shower, it won't break. It's good to have a spoon, you can use a plastic one too! I've also added coffee grounds to it, it's suppose to help cellulite. I'm not sure if it did, but I loved the smell. You don't need the scented oil if you use coffee grounds. You might need to add a little more olive oil.



Brown Sugar Body Scrub
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
2-3 drops scented oil
Mix well and store in an airtight container. This keeps forever!



These are two of our family members. They are our kid's dogs. That's Seamus on the left and Fifi on the right. This is before they went to the groomers today!



Now Seamus is on the right and Fifi is on the left. Do you like the Mohawk? It gives him the tough guy look, but he's not.

Amish Friendship Bundt cake

Sometime around the beginning of December my sweet husband came home with a bag of Amish Friendship Bread Starter and the directions. I have been taking good care of that starter ever since. It's hard to get anyone to except the starter, I even left some at my gym with the directions. I don't know if anyone took any. So, most of the time I just make some for myself and chuck the rest. I know, wasteful, huh? I do split the starter and just add half the ingredients to the starter, so that saves some. I don't think my friends are into baking that much, or maybe it's the commitment to the starter. My daughter over at Tuffet told me that she had seen a recipe for it made into a bundt cake and I thought it was a wonderful idea! So I found this recipe over at How To Eat a Cupcake . I did make a couple of changes.

Amish Friendship Bundt Cake
Leftover starter from day 10 in the basic amish friendship bread recipe
Mix in a small bowl:
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
In a large measuring cup, mix together:
3 eggs
3/4 cup oil
1/2 cup of milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
In a large bowl, sift together:
2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 box instant butterscotch pudding
1 cup chocolate chips
Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour the measuring cup ingredients in plus your starter. Mix with a spoon. Add 1 cup chocolate chips. Pour into a well greased bundt pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Cool in pan for 10 minutes then invert onto a plate to finish cooling.

Hmm, everyone loved the bundt cake! Funny how changing the shape made it new again! Maybe next time I'll try cupcakes!