Homemade English Muffins

Once you’ve enjoyed big, plump, freshly made English muffins, with the signature nooks and crannies this breakfast treat is known for, you won’t want to go back to store-bought.   

Toasted to perfection and smothered in butter and jam...mmmmmm!



Follow this simple recipe to make 16 ample size muffins:

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups lukewarm milk
3 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
4 1/2 cups ( I use King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour)
2 teaspoons yeast

Place the ingredients into a mixing bowl, or into the pan of your bread machine

This is going to be a very soft dough, so you’ll need to treat it a bit differently than most yeast doughs. If you have a stand mixer, beat the dough using the flat beater paddle until it starts coming away from the sides of the bowl, and is satin-smooth and shiny; this will take about 5 minutes at medium-high speed. When you lift up the beater, the dough will be very stretchy.

If you have a bread machine, simply use the dough cycle.

Scrape the dough into a rough ball, and cover the bowl. Let the dough rise for about an hour until it’s nice and puffy…

Next, prepare your griddle or frying pan.  To give the muffins their signature crunchy crust, I sprinkled the  griddle with semolina, or with farina (e.g., Cream of Wheat).

Whatever you use – an electric griddle, stovetop griddle, frying pan, electric frying pan – sprinkle it heavily with semolina or farina.

If you’re using a griddle or frying pan that’s not well-seasoned (or non-stick), spray with non-stick vegetable oil spray first, before adding the semolina or farina.

Divide the dough into 16 pieces. Shape each piece into a smooth ball, then flatten the balls until they’re about 3″ to 3 1/2″ in diameter.

Sprinkle a baking sheet heavily with semolina or farina, and place the muffins on the sheet; they can be fairly close together, but not touching.

Either way, sprinkle the tops of the muffins with additional semolina or farina.

Cover the muffins (a piece of parchment works well), and let them rest for 20 minutes. They won’t rise like crazy, but will puff a bit.

Now comes the somewhat tricky part: cooking.

You need to find the exact amount of heat that’ll cook the muffins all the way through and brown them perfectly – simultaneously.

Cooking the muffins for about 15 minutes per side over VERY low heat worked well for me. But, unless you have two large griddles, this long cooking time may become problematic, as the muffins waiting to cook could over-rise and become fragile.

The solution? Slightly higher heat and a quicker cook on the stove (say, 7 minutes per side), followed by a short bake in the oven.

If you find your muffins are browning too quickly, turn the heat down. If they’re already as brown as you like, but still not cooked through, don’t panic; you’ll be able to finish them off in the oven.

Hmmm, the edges look good, full of nooks and crannies; but the center is a bit doughy.

Into the oven they go – 350°F for about 10 minutes should do it.

And remember: use a fork to split, not a knife to cut. Fork-split muffins will have wonderful nooks and crannies; knife-cut ones won’t.