English Muffins
They sure look like English muffins
Time: 2 Hours 50 minutes
Ingredient Availability: 5/5
Difficulty: 2/4
I’m sure I’ve said this before, but I’m going to say it again. Homemade bread is almost always better than what you can find at the grocery store. Well, as long as it comes out right, it will likely be better. I don’t think english muffins aren’t one of those breads that most would consider making at home, but I’m intrigued. This recipe comes from An Unapologetic Cookbook, which I’ve found to be hit or miss. Let’s see where this one lands.
Key Ingredients & Omissions:
This recipe shares its ingredients with most breads, so there really isn’t anything special here. You should be able to find everything you need for it easily.
Tools:
Stand Mixer (optional)
Bowls
3” cutter or similarly sized glass
Griddle or Cast Iron
Cooking Review:
Heat Milk & Water: 8 minutes
I find it odd that this recipe says to just add the water and milk to a bowl and heat to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. There really isn’t any guidance there. I used a small sauce pan over low heat to warm the milk and water. I overshot the temperature slightly and waited a few minutes for it to come back down to 100 before adding the yeast.
Letting Yeast Bloom: 10 minutes
While the yeast bloomed covered in the warm milk and water, I mixed the dry ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer.
Mix Dough: 2 Minutes
I added the yeast mixture to the dry ingredients and mixed them together with a wooden spoon until a shaggy dough formed. The recipe says to do it by hand, but I don’t think my hands would’ve done a better job.
Kneading Dough: 17 minutes
This is where I ran into some issues, which is why the difficulty level increased slightly. Honestly, this is partially my fault, as I didn’t notice that the recipe called for an additional 2 tablespoons each of milk and water from the beginning. That lead to the dough being dry and not really coming together in the stand mixer with the dough hook. Even when I added the missing 2 tablespoons each of milk and water, the dough was still to dry. I ended up having to add a further 2 tablespoons each of milk & water to get the dough to finally come together and knead. Again, the recipe says to knead by hand, but I don’t think the machine did any harm.
Rise & Cut: 1 hour 10 minutes
I removed the dough from the stand mixer bowl, sprayed some cooking spray into it, and returned the dough. I covered the bowl and let it rise for an hour. After it had puffed significantly, I punched the dough down, and rolled it out on a floured surface to about a half inch thick. I used a wine glass to cut out the muffins and transferred them to a cornmeal dusted baking sheet. I dusted the tops of the muffins with cornmeal and covered them with an inverted baking sheet.
Second Rise: 32 minutes
After letting the muffins puff up for about half an hour, I heated a griddle to prepare to cook the muffins.
Cooking Muffins: 23 minutes
I greased the griddle with butter and added the muffins in batches. Each batch took about 7 minutes to cook, flipping about 4-5 minutes into the cooking. I had a total of 3 batches, which all browned pretty nicely. I set them on a cooling rack once they were done.
Analysis:
These are definitely better than store bought English muffins. They much more flavor than what I can remember from the last time I had one. The texture is also nice, especially when toasted. They have a nice crispness on the exterior and a soft interior. It’s hard to explain the flavor of good bread, but these were impressive. I think they would work nicely as the bread for a breakfast sandwich. I’m going to give this recipe a 8/10. There are some quirks in the written recipe, but if you can get over them, you’ll be happy with the end result.
