ABC - English Muffins

I can't tell you how long I've been wanting to make English Muffins. So it should be no surprise that they "accidentally" landed on the recipe list for the Avid Baker's Challenge :o)

You don't have to be British to enjoy these! :o)

As you might know, we're baking King Arthur Flour recipes this year for ABC. It's always nice when a KAF recipe is accompanied by their blog post for extra tips and (step-by-step) pictures. Needless to say, these English Muffins were incredibly tasty and fairly easy to make. I doubt I'll be buying the store bought ones again.

If you'd like to join the ABC bakers in their monthly baking adventures, please go to the ABC blog for more information.

I opted for making the dough in the Bread Machine using the dough cycle. As you can see, the dough is very wet and sticky.

After the first rise, I put the dough in the fridge. It doubled in size again pretty quickly while in the fridge, so I gently deflated it, did a business letter fold, and stuck it in the fridge again. It remained in the fridge a total of  about 36 hours.

Prepare your cooking surface by sprinkling it with semolina or farina. I used an electric griddle and one stove top griddle, so I could bake all muffins at the same time.

The dough firmed up nicely in the fridge and was fairly easy to handle while cold. I still had to oil my work surface and my hands though. I divided my dough into sixteen pieces of 65 gram each and shaped them into balls. Flatten the balls into 3"-3.5" disks.

The recipe tells you to let the dough pieces rest for 20 min, but since my dough was cold, I gave them 30 min.

After 30 min, they were slightly puffy.

 Turn on your electric griddle (325-350F) and your stove top (low-med which for me was setting 3 out of 10 for both burners). After just a few minutes, they puff up as you can see below. Cover them with parchment paper and put a cookie sheet on top to weigh them down a bit (otherwise they will continue to rise and turn into dinner rolls).

While they were baking, I started cleaning up. After about 10 min on one side, I started smelling toasted semolina.

When I checked, they looked done, so I flipped them over. They baked for another 5 minutes on the other side. I checked the internal temperature and it was 201 F. After they cooled a bit, I opened one to make sure it wasn't doughy. It wasn't quite as dry as I had expected, so I popped them in a 350 F oven for about 8 min.

Here's an inside view:

Yummy English muffins!

I can't say I found the (elusive) nooks and crannies in mine. There were just the occasional tiny holes which was fine. I might have to hydrate my dough more next time, given that I used 25% whole wheat flour. It might also be the long stay in the fridge which gave the WW flour ample time to absorb more liquid compared to baking the muffins the same day. Even if they turned out like this every single time, I'd still make them again because they were VERY tasty! :o)

Final thoughts/tips:

• My husband loved these. He liked how soft they were and ate two while still slightly warm. These reminded us of a Moroccan bread called Batbout. So we ate these Moroccan-style: I served them with honey as well as extra-virgin olive oil. Of course, with a big pot of Moroccan mint tea. My husband gave these a 9 out of 10.
• I too loved these muffins. They were nice and toasted on the outside, and soft on the inside, with an ever so slight chew to them. That little bit of WW flour I used gave it a nice flavor without overpowering the muffins. I also made a sandwich with one: muffin, butter, and a slice of Pepper Jack cheese. Yum!
• The leftovers went into the freezer. I can't wait to eat one toasted!
• I made several changes so instead of listing the changes, I will post the entire ingredients list below with my adaptations.
• If you'd like to follow the original recipe, you can find it HERE.
• Don't forget to check out the ABC blog roll.

I'm sharing this post with:

• #BakedWithLove @ Roxana's Home Baking.
• Yeastspotting.

English Muffins

(adapted from the recipe on the King Arthur Flour site)

Ingredients

• 397g cold 1% milk
• 43g olive oil
• 6g salt
• 30g honey
• 23g dry milk powder, optional
• 1 large egg
• 135g King Arthur Flour White Whole Wheat flour
• 404g bread flour
• 7g instant yeast
• semolina, for sprinkling the griddle or pan

Place all the ingredients in the Bread Machine and run the Dough cycle. After the first rise, you can either refrigerate the dough until the next day or start shaping your English muffins right away following the instructions and step-by-step pictures on the King Arthur Flour blog.