Amish Friendship Bread

So my daughter, Claire, came home from school with a zip-top bag of goo and a recipe for Amish Friendship Bread. I deduced that it was some sort of starter, and we followed the instructions as directed, feeding it as required and after 10 days, replenishing the starter, dividing it into five portions, and then giving away some and keeping one to bake with.

We actually kept two and baked off one of them. That was good because I messed up the first batch of bread that we made. We ended up being able to make the bread again, and the second time, the bread turned out better with the proper proportions of ingredients in it. (I'd put in too much sugar the first go-round.)

After the second set of loaves, I was left with a big question: What was the deal? I was kind of expecting something special, maybe a distinctive, tangy flavor. Instead, it was a moist quick bread. I was perplexed to the point that I posed my question at CooksTalk, the forum at FineCooking.com. In the end, the upshot seemed to be: Yes, it's a moist quick bread.

The charm of all of this rigamarole is in sharing the starter. It was a cute-enough endeavor, but on the other hand, we have now distributed all of the starter to other friends. I think we're totally OK with that, too.

For what it's worth, the best version we made was chocolate, flavored with chocolate pudding and mini-chocolate chips. The version in the photo was made with golden raisins.