Wednesday, May 18, 2011

english muffins.

English muffins are one of my favorite breakfast foods. And lunch foods. And dinner foods. You can do so many different things with them! You can make...

...an egg sandwich with ham
...a mini pizza 
...toasted PB and J
...or just eat it with butter and jam

...plus a million other things, I'm sure. But those are my favorite. :]

Between Jake and I, we go through quite a few English muffins. We usually just get the cheap-o ones at Aldi, but if we feel like "splurging," we buy the Thomas' ones. 


They are SO GOOD. But... we don't have have the money to splurge on things like English muffins every time, and the cheap-o ones aren't AS good. So I decided to try making our own. It was super easy, and the ingredients are fairly common in most kitchens... so I encourage you to give it a try!

I used the recipe from the Pioneer Woman's recipe blog.

ENGLISH MUFFINS.
  • 1 cup Milk
  • 3 Tablespoons Butter
  • 2 Tablespoons Honey
  • 1 cup Warm Water
  • ¼ ounces, weight Yeast
  • ¼ cups Cornmeal
  • 5-½ cups Flour
  • 1 teaspoon Salt

Combine milk, butter, and honey in a saucepan over medium heat. Warm until butter starts to melt, then whisk briefly. Remove pan from heat and allow liquid to cool to lukewarm.

Pour water into a mixing bowl and sprinkle with yeast. Stir gently with a fork. Set bowl aside for 10 minutes, or until yeast has dissolved.
Line baking sheets with waxed paper and sprinkle with a generous amount of cornmeal. (Note from me: when she says a "generous" amount, she means it. I didn't put enough cornmeal down and my muffins stuck, hence the fingerprint indentations on most of my muffins. And, bonus! You can re-use the leftover cornmeal that DOESN'T stick to the muffins, so go ahead and put a bunch down.)
Pour cooled milk mixture into yeast mixture and gently stir until well blended. Add 3 cups flour and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until smooth. Beat in remaining flour and salt until the dough is no longer sticky. Scrape the dough onto a floured surface and dust with flour. Flour hands and knead dough for 3-4 minutes. Let rest 5 minutes.
Roll out dough with rolling pin to about 1/2 inch thick. Cut the dough into circles (a tumbler or mason jar does well). Transfer muffins to prepared baking sheets and sprinkle with cornmeal. Cover with a dry, lightweight towel and let rise until doubled in height, 35-45 minutes.
When muffins have risen, heat a skillet over medium heat. Carefully lift muffins from the pan and place on the ungreased skillet. Cook about 10 minutes on each side, using a spatula to flip them. Transfer to a wire rack to cool before splitting (with a fork) and toasting them.
Here is how mine turned out! I will definitely be making them again. 







2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm impressed! I just might have to try that ... an English muffin sounds really good right now!

Anonymous said...

Your FIL really likes english muffins, too. (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)