I am fortunate to live steps away from a fantastic bakery, which supplies me with warm, fresh loaves of bread on any given weekday. I don’t buy bagged supermarket bread, because fresh is so accessible and tastes so much better. And (because I love to wrap my fingers around a smooth ball of springy dough) what I can’t get at the bakery, I make myself.
One exception to the fresh-only rule has been English muffins – why? I don’t know. But I read the ingredients list on the last bag I bought…
“Whole Wheat Flour, Water, Yeast, Salt, Wheat Gluten, Canola Oil” – this is about where I’d expect the list to end – but no, we’ve got, “glucose-fructose, calcium proprionate, monocalcium phosphate, calcium sulphate, ammonium chloride, azodicarbonamide, diacetylated tartaric acid esters of mono- and diglycerides (??!?), calcium peroxide and ascorbic acid” in there too. Yum?
I decided that bag would be my last!
I can’t believe I had never made English muffins before. They are so easy they practically make themselves, and they blow those bagged pucks out of the preservative-laden water. I made a double batch and froze them. Now I have an eggs-benedict vehicle at the ready whenever the whim should strike.
Have you tried no-knead bread? English muffins are just as easy, but with less waiting. You simply stir the ingredients together – no kneading – and only have to wait an hour. And if you haven’t made no-knead bread, you should get on that, stat.
The dough is very sticky, you’ll need a well-floured surface. I used a 3 inch biscuit cutter to make circles, but you could just as easily use an overturned glass.
The muffins are cooked first in a cornmeal-dusted frying pan (you could simply use more flour if you don’t have cornmeal, or wheat germ) and then transferred to an oven to finish baking. Don’t skip the skillet and try to shortcut them straight to the oven – tried this, and the result was flat buns, not english muffins.
Homemade english muffins are fresh and chewy, all full of craggly crevices for melted butter to seep into. Use a fork to stab around the circumference, then pry it apart (if you use a knife, you’ll lose the nooks and crannies!).
My recipe uses some yogurt to mimic the tang of a sourdough english muffin, and also helps to make them extra soft and chewy.
Homemade English Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups milk
- ¼ cup cold butter cubed
- 1 egg beaten
- ¼ cup plain yogurt
- 4 cups all-purpose flour or 2 cups whole wheat + 2 cups all-purpose
- 1 tbsp granulated sugar
- 2 ¼ tsp instant or rapid-rise yeast
- 1 ½ tsp salt
- cornmeal for dusting the skillet
Instructions
- In a large microwave-safe measuring cup, microwave the milk on high power until it starts to simmer at the edges, about 2 1/2 minutes. Stir in the cold butter until melted. When the mixture has cooled to warm, stir in the beaten egg and yogurt.
- Combine the flour, sugar, yeast and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. With the mixer on low (beater attachment), slowly add the milk mixture. Beat 1 minute, until thoroughly combined. The dough will be very wet. Cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm spot to rise for one hour.
- Scrape the dough from the bowl onto a floured work surface. Lightly flour the top and pat or roll it out until about 1/2 inch thick. Use a floured 3-inch biscuit cutter (or an upside-down drinking glass) to cut rounds. Gather up the scraps and repeat. Use a floured spatula to pick up the muffins as you go, and set them aside to rise for 20 minutes.
- Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and heat a skillet (or two) over medium heat. Dust the skillet generously with cornmeal. Place the English muffins 1 inch apart and cook 3–4 minutes, until golden brown on the bottom. Flip and cook another 3–4 minutes. Transfer to a baking sheet as they're done. Once all are browned, bake in the centre of the oven 7–10 minutes, until they sound hollow when you tap their tops.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Hi. 🙂
We LOVE english muffins and we can’t get them here (Italy), so I was thrilled when I saw your recipe.
I prepared this last Sunday and we had a wonderful breakfast. The english muffins were just perfect! It had that added dream like feeling that you get when you eat that perfect and simple food you usually don’t get to eat, so I am not sure I am being objective.
I froze some, and I realized afterward that I should have cut them before freezing them.
We will be making this again soon.
Thanks for the recipe. You are welome for breakfast anytime. 🙂
Hi Juli! Thank you for the lovely note, I’m so happy my english muffins could bring something special to your breakfast table in Italy! And that invitation is very tempting… 🙂
I found this recipe on Pinterest. I made it on April 2, 2016. This is the first time I made English Muffins. Very easy to make. My adult daughter even approved. ( She picks on me about my cooking)
I was really excited to try making English muffins on my own, so I tackled your recipe here. The only adjustment I made was using 2 cups of whole wheat flour and 2 of AP flour. Also, my biscuit cutter (glass) was maybe more like 2 inches than three. The muffins didn’t come out quite as fluffy as I was thinking they would. It could have been that my old hand mixer didn’t mix the dough well enough (it got so sticky!!), or that I didn’t let it rise long enough…but I’ll give it another shot in the future. Did you ever try this recipe with whole wheat flour?
Made these tonight, with awesome results! I did make one change, I swapped the yogurt for sour cream, as that is what I had on hand. They were so easy to make, and the results are worth it. I loved the whole process, especially watching them puff up ever so slowly on the griddle. Thank you for sharing!