Happy Sunday Bread Heads!
One of the staples of breakfast breads in the English Muffin. This redoubtable break is should never be cut with a knife. Instead it should be pierced with a fork and pulled apart leaving lots of nooks and crannies, the better to hold the butter!
Unfortunately the way that I was originally taught to make them is a real pain in the posterior. This issue is they are usually cooked on a griddle or a large heavy frying pan. It takes forever and not everyone has a griddle. So over the years I monkeyed around with different methods and finally came up with a way to bake them in large batches and not have them turn into puff balls. This is the recipe I am going to share with you today.
English Muffins
Ingredients
5 ½ cups flour (approximately)
2 packages (4 ½ teaspoons) dry yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup milk
1 ¼ cups hot water (120-130 degrees)
3 tablespoons butter at room temperature
1 egg at room temperature
Corn meal
Cookware – Two baking sheets. For this application it is best if they are not non-stick.
Method
In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer measure 3 cups of flour and the dry ingredients. Stir a couple of times to mix. Add the butter and the hot water. With the flat paddle attachment or a wooden spoon beat for two minutes. Add the egg and beat until it is mixed in.
Stir in the rest of the flour, ¼ cup at a time until the dough it a rough shaggy mass. If you are using a stand mixer, switch to the dough hook, and knead for 10 minutes on medium speed. The dough will clean the sides of the bowl and form a ball under the hook.
If you are doing this by hand, turn the dough out onto a floured work surface. It will start our sticky and a little hard to work with, but just keep up the push-turn-fold rhythm and it will start to become smooth and elastic as the gluten develops.
Grease your fingers lightly with butter (yes butter, it will keep the dough from crusting better than vegetable oil) and place in a large bowl to rise. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until it has doubled in volume, about 30 minutes.
Punch down the dough and then turn it out on the work surface. Divide the dough in half (you will be making two batches). Return one half to the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Place this bowl in the refrigerator.
For the remaining half of the dough, knead for 30 seconds or so and then let it rest under a clean tea towel for 10 minutes. Roll the dough out to about ¼ thickness and using a biscuit or cookie cutter cut 3" rounds out. Cover your work surface with a light dusting of cornmeal and set the rounds there. Cover with a clean tea towel and allow them to rise until they have doubled to about ½" tall, about 30 minutes.
To avoid having the English Muffins turn into dinner rolls we need to have them weighted down. A hot baking sheet is ideal for this. Make sure the back of the baking sheet is completely clean. Twenty minutes before you are going to bake the muffins, place that sheet in the oven and pre-heat to 450 degrees.
When the oven is ready put your dough rounds on the other baking sheet (you should have about 12). Slip it into the hot oven and then set your hot baking sheet right on top of the dough rounds.
Bake for 15 minutes. When they are done they have risen another ½" or so. They will be light brown on the top and the bottom. Be careful removing the top pan and leave it in the oven if you are making a second batch. Non-stick pans are not really ideal for this application, as they tend to get hot and the coating can out-gas some pretty nasty stuff.
Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack. Repeat the process with the other half of the dough or freeze it for up to two weeks, tightly rapped in plastic.
The end result is a muffin with a lovely crumb and the flat and crusty top and bottom. The finished muffins also freeze quite well.
Griddle Method
What’s that? Oh, you want to know how to make them on the griddle? Okay, but don’t say that I did not warn you it took forever.
To make then on the griddle do not divide the dough, instead roll out the entire batch and cut into rounds. Allow to rise as with the baked muffins.
Pre-heat your griddle or heavy frying pan to 350 degrees. Start by baking each group of muffins (about 6 fit onto a standard electric griddle) for two minutes on each side. Watch them carefully to be sure you do not scorch the dough. Then cook and additional 6 minutes on each side for a total of 16 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool. Repeat until you have cooked all your muffins.
There you have it, homemade English Muffins. You can make whole wheat muffins by replacing half the flour with the whole wheat flour of your choice.
The flour is yours!