ENGLISH MUFFINS - PART 2

When I wrote about making English muffins last week (HERE), I promised to update when I made the second, more complicated recipe.  I wasn't overly impressed with the first recipe, and when Kelly posted a comment directing me to a recipe for English muffins that she had tried, I was tempted.  In the end, because her recipe wasn't all that different from mine, I decided to go ahead and make the more complicated recipe, so here it is - comments follow:

English Muffins

Starter


2 cups warm water
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon dry active yeast

In a medium bowl, stir together water and yeast. Let stand a couple of minutes to dissolve yeast. Stir in all purpose flour and whole wheat to make a thick batter.

Cover with a cloth and let stand at room temperature for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Sponge:

1 teaspoon dry active yeast
3/4 cup warm water (110 to 115ºF / 45ºC )
2 cups starter - room temperature
3/4 cup scalded milk, cooled to room temperature
2 cups unbleached bread flour

In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the 2 cups starter (reserve remaining starter for dough), and mix well; Stir in the milk and bread flour to make a thick batter. Cover and let stand 1 hour.

English Muffins:

Sponge mixture

Remaining starter
4 cups (approximately) unbleached bread flour
4 tablespoons honey
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons dry buttermilk powder
2 tablespoons cornmeal

Stir down the sponge mixture and add the remaining starter, flour, honey, salt, buttermilk powder and cornmeal. Beat with a wooden spoon for about 5 minutes. Dough will be soft. Cover and let rise in a warm place until almost doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes.

Lightly deflate the dough. On a work surface sprinkled with cornmeal, roll or pat dough out to a 3/4-inch thickness. Cut into 3 1/2-inch rounds using a cookie cutter. Place on a baking sheet that's been sprinkled lightly with cornmeal, cover, and let rise in a warm place until almost doubled in size, about 45 minutes.

Heat a cast iron frying pan or griddle over medium heat. Sprinkle cooking surface with cornmeal. Cook a few muffins at a time (do not crowd the pan) until bottoms are browned, about 5 to 8 minutes. Turn and brown the other side, adjust heat if muffins are browning too quickly. Transfer cooked muffins to a wire rack and cool completely.

Makes 14 to 16 English Muffins.

Okay, first of all, let me say that this recipe was hands-down the winner!  These things actually look like English muffins and taste pretty darn good too!  Let me tell you about the changes I made to the recipe.

To begin, when making bread, a slack dough will always yield a bread that's more 'airy', and since I knew I wanted all those nook and crannies that English muffins are known for, I found that I needed to use much less flour.  Actually I used about 3 1/2 cups of flour instead of four, and additionally I ended up added more water.  In the end the dough wasn't as much like a batter like the first one, but was still very slack. 

I really liked the idea of sprinkling cornmeal on the surface where the dough would be cut.  I also used a silicone sheet to minimize sticking.   I cut each round using the tuna can mold it would stay in for the rise.  I simply slid each tuna can with dough over to an empty section of the silicon mat and sprinkled a little cornmeal on top.  Eventually I ran out of tuna can molds, so I just cut the dough and left a good distance between each one, not knowing how much they'd spread during the rise. 

Although the recipe says it makes between 14 and 16, I got quite a few more than that, and some of them were pretty large - super-sized!  I'm betting that if I had used the molds for all the dough and made them all 'normal' size, I could have gotten at least 2 dozen. 

I sprinkled more cornmeal on top of each muffin, covered them with waxed paper and a towel, and left them to rise.  Even with the cornmeal and waxed paper, the muffins still wanted to stick, but it wasn't that big a problem. 

Instead of an iron skillet I used my cast iron griddle, mainly because I had so many more muffins to cook and wanted to cook as many at one time as I could.  I lightly greased the griddle, sprinkled it with cornmeal and started with the loose muffins.  Without an electric griddle it's hard to know the right temperature, but I tried to get the griddle good and hot, then turn the flame down to medium low. 

Once again my muffins took longer to cook than stated in the recipe, but maybe the heat was too low - I was concerned about getting them cooked all the way through without burning them.

When I got to the muffins that had risen in my tuna can molds, I left two in the can just to see how they'd do.  Generally I wasn't as pleased with this method - I thought these muffins would cook more quickly, due to the metal ring surrounding them, but that didn't seem to be the case.  Additionally, these muffins tended to poof out over the can as they rose, giving me an English muffin that really did look like a muffin.  Maybe that's because I had the dough too thick when I cut it, but still, although it took a little more work, I preferred to cook them out of the mold. 

I slid a bowl scraper under the muffin, still in the mold, and transferred it to the skillet  I held the mold just above the griddle and gently pushed the (sticky!) batter out of the mold, going around the edges until the batter released. 

Although I felt as if I was making English muffins for the better part of the morning, in the end I was pleased with the results and shouldn't have to repeat this process for quite a while.  Normally I have half a muffin for breakfast, but some of these are so large I think I'll get four servings instead of two.  I sliced the muffins once they were cool and put them into ziplock bags and into the freezer.  Just putting the toaster on it's longest setting is plenty to defrost and toast them whenever I'm ready!

And no - not quite as many nooks and crannies as a Thomas English muffin, but next time I'll make the dough a little more like a batter and we'll see what happens.  For now, not bad, huh?