For most folks who grew up in the US, the gold standard for english
muffins are the Thomas(r) brand, famous for their "nooks and
crannies" that hold the melted butter when fork-split and toasted. I
have no idea if they are similar to English english muffins but for
many years they were almost the only english muffin you could get in
US supermarkets. I have been trying to achieve a good home-baked
version for many years without success. Most often the interior is
too cake-like, or even bread-like, and often has an undercooked
interior. Most recipes call for a moderately wet dough, dry fried on
a skillet or griddle. The recipe and procedure below finally
achieved both the "nooks and crannies" and a fully baked interior.
Fork-split, toasted, and buttered they are delicious.
The basic recipe is adapted from _The Wooden Spoon Bread Book_ by
Marilyn M. Moore. She has both an english muffin recipe and a
crumpet recipe. I tried both and each had problems. The muffin
recipe had the wrong texture (cake-like) and the crumpet procedure
didn't fully bake the interior. The solution to the under-baking
came from Peter Reinhart's _Bread Bakers Apprentice_; use the oven to
finish baking. The solution to the texture problem is to use the
very wet dough in Moore's crumpet recipe.
Many bakers make a sandwich bread in loaf pans using english muffin
dough. I think this recipe is too wet for loaf pan baking. It is
almost 1:1 liquid to flour by volume! That's more than 100%
hydration by weight and is more like a pancake batter than a dough.
Makes 10 to 12 English Muffins
2 1/2 cups milk, reconstituted from dry powder or scalded and cooled to 110 F
1 Tb melted butter
1 tsp sugar, honey or malt syrup (I use honey)
3 cups All Purpose Flour
1 tsp table salt or 1 1/2 tsp sea salt
1 scant Tb Instant Yeast (scant means slightly below the rim)
Regular PAM and either semolina or corn meal for baking
Mix the milk, (warmed slightly to help dissolve the honey/sugar),
sweetener, and melted butter. Mix the flour, salt and yeast. Add
the liquid to the dry ingredients. If you don't use a machine, don't
even try to knead the batter, it's hopeless, just mix until
smooth. If you have a machine, use the flat beater and mix on speed
4 for at least 15 minutes. Kneading will create a gluten structure
that traps the bubbles and develops better nooks and crannies. Pour
the batter into a bowl large enough to allow for doubling (if the
batter overflows it will be a mess; too big is better than too
small), cover and let stand for 45 min to 1 hour or until doubled.
Meanwhile, place a cookie sheet in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 F.
The procedure below assumes the use of standard muffin rings, 1" high
x 3 3/4" dia. If you make your own rings from tin cans, you will
have to adjust the quantities. Whatever you use should be no more
than 1" high.
Use PAM to grease the inside of the rings. Spread the PAM evenly
around the rings with your fingers. Stir the batter down
vigorously. Let stand while you preheat the griddle (at least 10 to
15 minutes to get the bubbles in the batter forming again and to
stabilize the temperature of the griddle).
I used a two-burner griddle which easily handles 6 rings with space
between them. Preheat the griddle to "very low" with the greased
rings in place. How low? Much lower than for pancakes. It should
take at least 10 minutes per side to brown the muffins. You are
trying to balance browning the bottoms with allowing enough time for
bubbles to rise to the top through the wet dough. In a perfect world
the bottoms will be brown at the same time the tops just start to
lose their shininess but are still soft when you flip them. Even if
you have a large griddle, practice with one or two rings first.
Spray the griddle inside the rings lightly with PAM and sprinkle with
some semolina or corn meal. Measure out 1/2 cup of batter, not
overflowing, and pour it into a ring. (I use a plastic 1/2 cup dry
measure.) It should fill to about 2/3 full. During baking the
dough should rise just to the top of the 1" ring. Use a metal
spatula to peek under the muffins and check for browning. The heat
is right when the bottom is brown and top is just starting to set
(lose its glisten). Flip the muffins and brown the tops (about 8 to
10 minutes). If the tops were still soft enough the holes on the top
surface should seal and you get that classic Thomas' look on the
top. Use metal tongs to remove the rings, clean off stuck dough and
then re-grease them with PAM for the next batch.
When the muffins are browned on both sides they will still be raw
inside. Remove them and quickly put them on the cookie sheet in the
oven. If they don't all brown at the same rate on the griddle, don't
wait for them all to get done. They can't be allowed to cool down,
get them into the oven immediately as they are browned. Start the
next batch of muffins on the griddle. After 10 minutes, test the
muffins in the oven, the centers should be 200 F.
English muffins freeze well. Wrap tightly in Al foil, then put them
into a freezer bag. Thaw in a toaster oven with the Al foil still on.