We love english muffins! Especially for breakfast sandwiches! I’d never made them before and had no idea what the process was. Pretty interesting! You make little dough discs and cook them on a pan for a bit before baking them in the oven. The step with the pan helps keep the top and bottom flat! I have made these a few times and have my own recipe now! I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
Shaping your dough is important, make balls with plenty of surface tension, then flatten them into these discs. These will rise for only a few minutes before you cook them on a pan so you can preheat the pan and the oven at this stage.
Many recipes use cornmeal to dust the dough and cook them in the pan like this. That works ok but as I learned with pizza dough, durum works way better! Durum wheat when it’s ground coarsely, it is called semolina. This is what I do! I set the mill to a coarser setting and mill a few tablespoons of durum! Be sure to handle these dough discs very gently at this stage. Don’t forget to have the oven preheated!
Here’s a finished English muffin after it bakes in the oven and cools! I will continue to try different methods to get bigger air pockets in them but these are SO good!
English Muffins:
2 1/4 C Milk
2 TBS Sugar
4 TBS Melted Butter
1 Egg
1 1/2 tsp Salt
595 g fresh flour (mostly hard white or use a little spelt/kamut/einkorn with it)
2 1/4 tsp instant yeast
Some semolina or cornmeal for dusting.
- Warm the milk, butter, sugar together in a pan or microwave until about 110 degrees.
- Combine all ingredients except the yeast and mix until no dry flour remains. Cover and let it sit for 15 minutes (autolyse).
- Add yeast and knead for several minutes until dough is stretchy. No need to go all the way to windowpane with these.
- Lightly oil surface of dough. Cover and let it rise until doubled, 30-60 minutes depending on room temperature.
- Punch dough down and cut into 16 pieces.
- Shape each piece carefully but quickly into a firm ball then smash flat to about 1/2 inch thick.
- Preheat griddle/pan to medium AND oven to 325 degrees.
- Dust cookie sheet with semolina/cornmeal and place dough discs on sheet. Sprinkle a bit more semolina on top. Cover with towel and let rest for 20 minutes.
- Cook muffins for a couple minutes on each side in the pan, until golden, handle them very gently. Be careful not to let them get too dark but if your heat is low enough, these can cook for a few extra minutes! It helps the muffins leep their flat tops and bottoms while baking. Move them back to the cookie sheet once golden on both sides.
- Bake for 10-15 minutes or until 200 degrees inside. Then move them on a cooling rack. Let cool and enjoy!
We like to use these little crumpet rings to cook up some eggs, add some crumbled bacon, or sometimes a sausage patty! These are delicious with a little cheese and some spicy aioli as well! A huge hit in this house!
