April 2, 2020

Homemade English Muffins



I absolutely love english muffins. I usually start my morning toasting a store bought english muffin and spreading once slice with jam and the other slice with peanut butter. They are so versatile, they can used for breakfast, think egg sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, toasted with butter, or as a quick lunch with avocado or mini pizzas. The ideas are endless. 

Recently, I was not able to purchase english muffins, and it finally motivated me to make my own. I have been wanting to for the longest time. I found a video from Living Traditions Homestead and tried out their recipe. It was so quick and easy. I shared their recipe and video below. I only make homemade english muffins now.


1 ¼ cup warm water
1 Tbsp. Sugar
1 Tsp. Yeast
2 Tbsp. Melted Butter or Oil
2 ¾ Cups flour (Plus a little extra)
1 tsp. Salt
Cornmeal for dusting (optional)


Mix warm water and sugar in a large bowl and sprinkle yeast on top.  Let rest, covered, for 10 minutes.


Add oil and salt to mixture.


Then add in the flour until it is only slightly sticky.  


You can put the dough on floured surface and knead for 3-4 minutes.  I left it in the bowl and continued to knead it in the bowl. Add flour if necessary to stop dough from sticking to kneading surface.


Using another bowl, put the dough into an oiled bowl.


Cover with a towel until the dough has doubled in size.  About 1 hour. 


Make sure the room is nice and warm while it is rising. As you can see from the above photo, it doubled in size.



After it has risen, knead the dough a couple times and then using my hands I flattened the dough, not completely, it was still thick. I then used a cup to cut the circles out. I made exactly 10 with the dough, no left over dough.


Sprinkle corn meal on a piece of parchment paper and place the dough balls on top.  Flatten each ball to about 1 inch tall.  Cover with a dish towel, as shown in the above photo, and let rest for 20 more minutes. I did not add corn meal to mine because I did not have any, so it is optional.


Heat a frying pan on low heat and lightly oil.  You may need to adjust the heat, but you want to leave them in there slowly "baking" / "cooking". I had to increase the temperature to go them dark brown on each side.



Place as many of the muffins in the pan as you can and cook for about 8-10 minutes or until brown 
on the bottom.  Flip and cook another 5-7 minutes or until done. Some recipes recommended browning for a few minutes on each side using the skillet and then baking them in the oven at 200 degrees for 10 minutes, to ensure the inside is baked. I simply cooked them on the skillet for about 10 minutes on each side and if the bottoms did not brown, I cranked the heat to medium so that they could get brown.


I cooled them off on a cookie rack. And this is how they look.


Once completely cooled, use a fork to split them open. I read that you do not want to use a knife to slice them open. Using a fork to split them open provides the "english muffin" appearance with the nooks, as seen in the photo above. You can toast them in a toaster and serve them with your choice of toppings.


Enjoy! I hope these come out great for you. 

No comments :