English Muffins

I’ve mentioned many times that me n DH grew up in New York and we have certain items we remember fondly, amongst them are what are known as English Muffins. This was a treat that we would get, it (at the time) was only Thomas’ English Muffins and you toasted them and ate them with butter and/or jam and made happy little noises at the crunchy nooks and crannies.

So, imagine my surprise when on a visit to my BFF Paulette in England I asked if they were the same as muffins there and she looked amused and said, no, we have “American” muffins (the cake like objects we make in muffin pans) and the closest thing to it is a crumpet. I was always an avid reader of English novels where people had tea and crumpets and being a good buddy, she immediately bought me a packet to try. People, it bears absolutely no resemblance, the top looks a bit nook and cranny-like but the texture is this weird floppy thing and I just can’t even. So, turns out Mr. Thomas was English and brought his own invention to the USA. Huh. Okay.

Back to Jerusalem and we don’t have them here, nary a crumpet nor an English muffin. So, all my kids remember me making them a bunch of times in the past but I had a sudden longing for them so I made ’em again and what can I say, I just really love them. Crunchy and delicious, shmear it with jam/butter/cream cheese they are a taste of New York and childhood to me and really, not hard to make.

Take out your mixer and let’s get started!

First a word about yeast, stop! don’t get freaked out. If you follow my instructions and make sure your yeast is fresh, it’ll be all good. Promise. Check the date on your yeast and it’s easiest to work with instant dry yeast. It keeps well in the fridge once opened and you just proof (prove) it to make sure it’s alive and kicking. The way to know if your liquid is too hot? Stick your finger (washed, natch) into the liquid. If you need to yank out your finger, too hot. If it’s comfy warm, you’re good to go. So put yeast, sugar and water in a cup to proof.

Note it’s starting to bubble a bit. Next pic, it goes a bit wild.

See how foamy and how it rose nicely, almost like a head of beer? A healthy batch of yeast. Set aside, onward.

Into the bowl of a mixer, put the flour, sugar and salt and using a dough hook, mix briefly. Then add the eggs, oil, water and yeast mixture.

Turn on the mixer and let the machine knead the dough (if you don’t have a dough hook, use the beaters to incorporate the dough and mix without straining the motor and then you might need to knead by hand for 5 minutes) for about 10 minutes or till dough is smooth and looks like this:

The dough should be kinda thick and quite soft, a drop sticky. If too sticky, you may need to add a little more flour. Don’t go overboard since you want nice soft dough so add two tablespoons, see if it’s enough, add another two tablespoons, you get the idea. Not so much that the dough is dry.

Now I try to avoid many bowls to wash, so I simply use my oil spray and spray the dough all about and cover right in the mixing bowl with its own cover or a towel till it doubles in bulk, usually an hour and a half to 2 hours, depending on how frisky your yeast and how warm your room. A little trick I’ve discovered, my oven light (the oven is not turned on at all) is a nice warmer for dough. I bung the covered mixing bowl right in there to rise.

And after that time, risen, the dough should look like this:

Great, now gently deflate the dough and I eye it and make balls of approximately the same size (I don’t roll and cut, just take small muffin sized handfuls) and pull the dough into a smooth ball and taking a silpat or piece of parchment paper, shake either cornmeal or semolina (farina is good too) on it

and lay the balls of dough down, gently flattening them and allow to rise.

Now it shouldn’t take very long for the second rise, about 20-30 minutes or so.

Take a frying pan (to speed prep, I used 2 frying pans) and spray lightly with oil spray and WIPE out with paper towel. You aren’t frying them, you are pan baking them so you are sorta seasoning the pan so they won’t stick, hence, no leaving residue of oil.

Good. Get your pans to medium hot, not blazing hot. In other words, you want the inside to cook as well as the outside so if you make it scorching hot the outside will burn and the inside will not be fully baked and what a shame after all your work. So turn on the flame and turn to medium. Give the pan a few minutes to heat and gently lay 3-4 muffins in a pan, don’t crowd them since you’ll need to flip them. The dough won’t stick to the parchment if you were generous enough in the cornmeal/semolina sprinkling.

Definitely use non-stick pans for this. Okay, “bake” for 6 1/2 minutes and flip carefully with a spatula and gently press down on the muffin after flipping to slightly flatten it (don’t force it, gently!) and it should look like this:

See what I mean? they are not rounded on top, just a bit flattened. Good. “Bake” for another 6 1/2 minutes or till medium-ish brown. Cool on wire racks.

When ready to eat, take a fork and stick the tines into the center of a muffin, poking it all around till it mostly splits in half on its own, you might need to gently pry apart. Then toast ’em! You must, they are born to be toasted.

They will toast up crunchy and then slather with whatever spread tickles your fancy. An amazing treat for breakfast, brunch, dinner or a snack. By the way, these freeze fabulously so you can pace yourself and have one every morning if you choose. What could be bad?

English Muffins

For proofing yeast:
1 tablespoon instant dry yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
1 cup lukewarm water
For dough:
1 kilo (8 cups) flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon salt
6 tablespoons oil
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups lukewarm water
Cornmeal or semolina or farina for sprinkling paper

Directions:
In a bowl or large measuring cup place the sugar, yeast and one cup of lukewarm water. Let sit for about five minutes in order to make sure the yeast is active and bubbly. In the bowl of your mixer, place the flour, sugar, salt and using a dough hook, mix briefly, then add oil, eggs, yeast mixture that’s risen and the rest of the water. Knead in mixer or by hand for about 10 minutes. After kneaded, I spray oil right in the bowl and cover and let rise for an hour and a half to two hours or till doubled in bulk.

Take parchment paper or a silpat and sprinkle generously with cornmeal or semolina/farina. Gently deflate the dough and form even balls of dough, laying them of the farina and gently pressing down to form thick disks. (See pics above). Let rise again about 20-30 minutes and take a frying pan, lightly spraying with oil and wiping out with paper towel (just to keep from sticking, no frying here) and heat to medium heat not high heat. Gently take 3-4 muffin rounds and lay in heated pan and “bake” 6 1/2 minutes (this is approximate but more than 7 minutes and they will likely burn). Flip with spatula and gently press down and “bake” another 6 1/2 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on wire racks. Do this with all the remaining rounds of muffin dough. To serve, split all around with a fork (if you cut them you lose the bumpy bits that toast up so nicely) and toast. Serve with butter, jam or whatever spread suits your fancy.