English Muffin Magic
Finally.
It’s here.
My post on english muffins.
You see, I stumbled upon this recipe from Barbara’s Winos&Foodies blog a few years back but never got around to trying it till a few months ago, and which point I became highly impressed with the fact that yes, it is entirely possible to make your own english muffins at home!
Yes!
Yet another goodie that I do not have to buy chock full of preservatives from the supermarket, but can make fresh and tasty in my own kitchen!
I posted a teaser on my twitter account, and I know that there is at least one of you who has been anxiously waiting for this to be posted…so apologies for the delay 
Unfortunately, I occasionally hit the wall when trying to photograph the food I cook, and it wasn’t until this weekend past that I finally got some photos that I liked and thought were worth posting
English Muffins
(recipe adapted from Winos&Foodies)
Ingredients
2 teaspoons dried/instant yeast granules
1/2 teaspoon sugar
250ml warm water
125ml warm milk
350g bread flour
100g all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
rice flour or fine cornmeal/polenta
1. Measure out your yeast and set aside. Combine the flours and salt in a large bowl.
2. Mix together the flours with a fork or whisk, then remove 1 tbsp of the mixture. Add the bicarb/baking soda to the remaining flour and whisk through.
3. Add this to the yeast, add the 1/2 tsp of sugar and 125mL (half) of the warm water, then whisk together with a fork to break up any clumps. Leave this mixture to ‘blossom’.
4. Once the yeast mixture has blossomed, add the remaining warm water and warm milk to the bowl, give it a quick stir to pick up any flour that has sunk to the bottom of the bowl, then add the liquid to the flour mixture.
5. Using a fork, mix together the liquid and flours till it begins to come together. After this point, you will need to use your hand to give the dough a thorough kneading in the bowl – it can be a bit difficult as this is an extremely sticky dough.
6. Once the dough has been thoroughly kneaded, cover with a damp kitchen tea-towel and leave in a warm part of the kitchen to rise for 1 hr, or place in the fridge to let it rise overnight.
7. Once the dough has doubled in volume, use the oil to grease down your cleaned kitchen bench top and pull the dough onto it. Either roll (if you use a rolling pin then it will also need to be liberally oiled) or pat the dough into a rough rectangular shape, then fold and turn 90 degrees and repeat. Do this one more time.
8. Not pictured in the below – after the final turn and fold, lift the dough and sprinkle your bench top liberally with corn meal/polenta, then place the dough down and also cover the top of the dough with corn meal. Using a scone cutter, cut out 10-12 muffins.
Alternately, you can divide the dough into 12 balls yourself, but I prefer the shapes and uniformity that the scone cutter gives. Bear in mind that I am a lunatic who measures out her cupcake batter so that each cupcake liner has the same amount of batter down to the gram!
(The reason it isn’t pictured here is because I was seeing if just oiled surfaces would work. They don’t. Sticky sticky STICKY dough!)
9. Dust a large tray liberally with some corn meal, and also pour some into a shallow dish. Carefully transfer each muffin to the dish to make sure it is well coated with corn meal, before transferring to the tray.
10. Cover the muffins with cling wrap / plastic wrap, and allow to rest for 30 minutes. Heat a heavy frying pan over low-medium heat, give it a spray of cooking spray, then place 3-4 muffins in the pan (allowing room for them to expand). Cook for about 10 minutes each side, or till each side turns golden brown.
Once each muffin is cooked, transfer them into a pouch made from a clean kitchen tea-towel and rest for 15 minutes. Once rested, they can be split and enjoyed however you wish!
The muffins in this photo are from my first attempt, therefore a bit thin. Note to self: do NOT get over-excited when you need to roll out dough. I have a bit of a problem with this…
One of my favourite ways to enjoy these delights is to split them, toast them and spread each side with unsalted butter, a generous helping of jam (in this case, blueberry is a definite favourite), and to top them with a dollop of cream.
The other way I like to enjoy these is in a bastardized version of eggs benedict – english muffins, rindless bacon, spinach, tomato, poached egg and hollandaise!
See, the beautiful part of this recipe is the rising time! It’s actually easy enough that you can come home piss drunk (so long as you’re still able to stand on two feet and not throw up), make the dough and chuck it into the fridge. Then, you crawl into bed, bemoan the fact that you drank so much and fall asleep…the next morning, you can crawl out of bed, shape the muffins, go have a shower, and they’re ready to be cooked on the griddle or frying pan by the time you’re alive/refreshed!
No, I’m not speaking from experience…
In case that sounds a bit too difficult, you can also make these beforehand, split them and wrap them tightly in cling wrap and bung them into the freezer. When you do wake up with a hangover, you can just pop them into the toaster and enjoy them that way with minimal effort and grunting 
Technorati Tags: muffins, bread, english muffins, eggs benedict, breakfast, hangover
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
I have been putting making my own English Muffins in the memory bank for so long.
Perhaps it is time…you have opened the vault.
These look incredible. Crazy, I had to re-read your post. So you don’t bake them? This would be nice to make in the summer instead of bagels so my house doesn’t heat up. Thanks for sharing.
Brilliant! The photos came up nicely, but the muffins themselves are spot on. Thats very close to my dear Granny’s recipe. The bastardised benedict looks like a highlight – I hope the hollandaise is your own!
What perfect and tempting muffins! I love both the sweet and savory versions!
Cheers,
Rosa
Thanks, these look fabulous. If I had my way I’d eat breakfast three times a day.
I can imagine that the bennedict would go down a treat as part of a long and lazy brunch. (perhaps with some bloody marys to sort out those hangovers?)
oh man! i was always afraid to make this! not anymore! so gonna try this:)
question! for high grade flour, do i use “bread flour” and for standard can i use “all-purpose” ?
Muffins look delicious. Wish i could have a slice
Will definitely try this sometime.
Have a great day!
Ramya
Looks delicious Ellie.
Eggs Ben and Florentine. MY FAVOURITE. thanks for this post! it’s awesome
Ellie!!!! Yum! I had no idea english muffins were fried not baked! A revelation!
… these look SO good.
just lovely. now if i could just master making these while tremendously hung over, i’d be in business!
i’ve looking for an english muffin recipe for a while now (since there are none sold where i live) thank you so much for sharing!!!
@Jess Ho – You should definitely make your own
It may be more expensive to make than to buy them, but I think they taste better!
@alice – Nope! Definitely pan-fry these babies!
@Christian – Gasp! Of course the hollandaise is my own! I’m actually planning a hollandaise post!
@Rosa – Thanks Rosa
@Rachel – Hehehe, that sounds like quite a good way to go about breakfast
@amy – Please let me know how you go if you do end up giving the recipe a shot
@holly may – Whoops! Sorry, yes – bread flour and all-purpose flour
@Ramya Kiran – Thanks Ramya
@barbara – Thanks Barbara!
@Lianne – It’s so bad, but oh so good!
@Reemski – LOL! It was a revelation to me as well
@gauri – Aww, thanks sweetie
@Joy the Baker – LOL! The number of times I’ve cooked whilst drunk…well, let’s just say that it’s a miracle that I haven’t burnt down the house
@Reenah – My pleasure! I hope you enjoy this recipe
I’ll have one of each thanks! Those muffins look great (I almost said, ‘Your’ muffins look great.. which sounded kind of suss
).
Y – I can’t resist…*cues beats* my muffins bring all the girls to the yard
hehehe! Thanks for the comment – they’re a bit scraggly but I’ll get perfect shapes one day…I hope 
Hey, nice muffins!
That sounds like a euphemism…
Do you know how well these keep in the freezer? To they get close to their “just baked” goodness when they’re toasted/reheated?
English muffins appear to be the “new” cupcake – and I couldn’t be happier. They are the Rodney Dangerfield of breads – they get no respect at all. The last time I saw an English Muffin made from scratch was an old ep of Julia Child on PBS – she used tuna cans as molds.
Your muffins look absolutely delicious – I can’t wait to try the recipe. (The jam doesn’t look half bad either!)
Thanks for a great post.
Chiffy
<3
I’m so inspired to make my own english muffins now. I’d never thought of doing that before. They look delicious!
this looks great! (and the photos are wonderful!)
and I would like to thank you very much for the step-by-step guide – it is really very helpful!
have a wonderful day!
I saw these photos on flickr and they look even more delicious now that I have this fantastic recipe (if that is even possible!!). Really beautiful photography.
@Simon – Nope, but would you want them to? When these are freshly made, it’s almost impossible to split them and their crumb is so soft and moist that even spreading butter and jam on them without toasting will start to mush the insides.
@Chiffonade – Thanks hon
@Shari – You definitely should, they taste fab and well worth the effort
@Ama – Thanks for the comment, I hope you give them a try
@Megan {Feasting on Art} – Aww, thanks hon, that’s lovely of you to say
Oh yum these look delicious! Love the ones with jam on. Delicious
These muffins sounds delicious…i need to check this out this weekend…mouthwatering photos…all you have to do is step outside for some of the ingredients…right away i’m gonna get the ingredients and try it..thanks for sharing.
@Katie – Thanks sweetie
I have all the ingredients in and think I might give it a whirl as soon as I’ve had breakfast in the morning!
Inspirational photos too – I love the idea of something as simple as a delicious muffin with jam and a splodge of cream! Like needn’t be complicated to be delightful!
Hi,
I’ve just made these for breakfast and they went down a treat! I was worried I made them a bit too thick, but it didn’t seem to affect the outcome. Thanks for the recipe!
@Diane – Thanks sweetie
Please let me know how it went, I’d love to hear what you think!
@Verity – Hi hon, thank you so much for taking the time to let me know that you’d tried this recipe, I’m so glad that it worked out well for you!
I had no idea this was how english muffins were made- just no idea!