Amish Friendship 'Puppy'

Since early February I've been taking care of a new pet. I use this reference because it's so appropriate but cannot take credit for it because Joel's mama actually posted it as a comment on my Facebook wall. But alas, I have a new pet, and we are developing a love/hate relationship - Amish Friendship Bread and Starter. Or, FABS, for those of you who enjoy acronyms. FABS and I started out on the adventure together as I eagerly mashed the bag every morning, anticipating the 10th day when I could add all ingredients and produce a fantastic homemade sweet bread that could satisfy my need for comforting goodness.

Days turned into weeks of mashing and adding and mixing and baking. The bread is fantastic but the waistline situation became an issue. Looking at the recipe I realized by the time the bread is complete I've added 5 and a half cups of sugar, a cup of oil, 3 eggs, AND pudding mix. Yeah, I just gained three pounds writing that. So over the course of the weeks I've tried to figure out a way to limit the fat/sugar content of the batter.

So FABS is constantly on my mind: figuring out conversions for lower fat and calories, is today a mash day or an add day? is it day 6 or day 10? Who do I give my millions of starters to that won't want to kill me later? Thankfully my mother works at a hospital with LOTS of nurses and my sister is the mother to seven beautiful eaters and wife to one even better eater!

As for FABS and my waistline? I made my most recent batch using all applesauce in place of the oil and I also used fat-free/sugar-free jello. I also replaced half of the white flour with whole wheat flour. The bread actually came out fantastic and moist! I would argue that it even tastes better than the original recipe. Next time I'm looking to replace the whole egg with commercial egg white product (which we have about 15 cartons of from Joel's dad). Hopefully, I can keep FABS alive and keep my baby-birthing-hips at a minimal growth rate.