First, anyone reading this should know that any recipes that follow are strictly experimental and may or may not be authentic Amish Friendship Bread. The true Amish Friendship Bread is said to be privy only to the Amish and since they aren’t exactly Internet-friendly, it’s highly unlikely that these are true Amish recipes.

That said, the concept is still very, very interesting — and anything with the word “friendship” in its name can’t be all bad, right?

Recently, I was introduced to the world of Amish Friendship Bread and the absolute magic that can come from something as simple as a sweet, tasty bread.

It all started when a family member, my aunt to be exact, offered me and my wife an Amish Friendship Bread starter and a list of instructions about a mile long. Though hesitant at first, after trying the finished product, I had to have this bread again — and the only way to do that was by making it ourselves.

The concept is simple. The Amish have a bread that begins with a “starter,” a goopy mixture of warm milk, flour, sugar and yeast. This starter must be cared for and caressed for 10 days, from its conception to the time it’s ready for baking. Once you make the bread, you are left with four “new” starters — three to pass on to friends and one to keep for making your own next loaf.

There are two ways to get a starter. You can make one using a recipe off the Internet or from a cookbook. Or, the more traditional way, you can receive your starter from a relative or friend. Once you have the starter, you enter into a contract with the baked good gods. You should never take an Amish Bread starter unless you intend to bake bread with it and pass the extra starter on to friends.

Here’s the basic schedule, once you’re received (or created) your starter.

Day 1: Do nothing. Wait for the mixture to get bubbly. Keep the starter covered, at room temperature. (Do not put it in the refrigerator.)

Day 2: If your starter is in a plastic bag, mash it with your hands. This lets out the air inside and mixes it up. If your starter is in a bowl (and, by the way, you should not use metal bowls or utensils), stir it well.

Day 3: Mash the bag or stir the contents of the bowl. It’s the same thing you do on…

Day 4: Mash or stir. Again.

Day 5: Add 1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour and 1 cup milk to the starter and — you guessed it — mash or stir.

Day 6: Mash or stir.

Day 7: Mash or stir. (Are we sensing a theme here?)

Day 8: Mash or stir. Yawn.

Day 9: Mash or stir. For the last time. Yea!

Day 10: Follow these instructions:

Pour the contents of the bag or bowl into another plastic bowl. Using a wooden spoon, stir in one cup sugar, one cup flour and one cup milk.

Once that’s blended, take out one cup of the mixture and pour it into a clean, gallon-size plastic zipper bag. Repeat this until you are left with one cup of mixture in the bowl. Then it’s time to add your other ingredients and prepare to make the bread, using …

2/3 cup oil

3 eggs

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 cup sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In the mixing bowl, combine all ingredients. Grease and flour well two 9-by-5 bread pans. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes.

And that, as they say, is that.

But Amish Friendship Bread is not, as you might have guessed by now, about baking just one little loaf of bread for you and your family. Remember: You still have three starters left over. And unless you want to be baking a lot of bread, you’ll need to give away those starters to baking-minded friends. So print several copies of the directions and give them, along with a starter, to your friends. If you don’t do this … well, let’s do the math.

Ten days later, when those starters are ready to bake with, you would have three loaves of bread and nine extra starters. Ten days after that, you would have nine more batches of bread and 27 new starters. Then it would be 27 batches of bread and 81 new starters.

And that’s only what would happen in one month. If you were to survive all that baking (and still want to continue!), after 10 more days your kitchen would be Amish Bread heck-a-roony with 81 batches of bread and 243 new starters. You’d be up to your ears in bread — and starters.

Life would be chaos.

Or you could go out and make 243 friends. Really, really fast.