English Muffins With Promise

I love English muffins.  (No surprise here, as I love bread . . .)  But as I live rather far from grocery stores, the times I have been able to buy them have been few and far between.  So I decided to try to make them.

The first recipe I tried worked fine, from a "did a successful bread result which resembles somewhat an English muffin" standpoint.  But the recipe did not result in exactly what I wanted, which was a spongy texture with nooks and crannies.  It was interesting to me in that I was cooking a twice-risen, cut-out yeast dough on a stovetop (which was a balancing act, temperature-wise), and it produced delicious bread.  But without the nice nooks and crannies, I felt something was missing.  It just didn't seem like an English muffin.

I posted this discouragement on Facebook one day, and a friend responded with a link which ultimately led to a recipe Alton Brown demonstrated at Food Network.  This recipe required some special equipment:  English muffin rings.  Wow . . . English muffin rings?  I had never heard of those.  (It said an alternative was to cut both ends off tuna cans, but all the tuna cans I found couldn't be opened on the bottom with a can opener . . .)  The next time my husband took me to lunch in a town with a cooking supply store, I discovered the coveted rings.

I dusted off the website and did some thinking.  The basic idea behind this recipe was very similar to the "no-knead" bread I had done before, except this recipe only required a 30-minute rising time, rather than 12 hours or so.  And yet, Thomas' used to advertise that their muffin dough spent 18 hours in rising.  (My husband reminded me of this when he listened to my description of the recipe and said, "It sounds like a pancake.")  I decided it was unlikely to hurt my results if I left the dough rising all night.  (And if it worked, the prep time in the morning would be just about nil.)

Unfortunately, the long rise version still didn't produce the results I wanted, so I reluctantly decided to go ahead and <sigh> follow the directions . . .

Actually, there were a couple of possible reasons for this . . . one being that I followed the directions too well in another area.  The recipe said to use 2 scoops of a #20 ice cream scoop for each muffin.  Well, exactly how big is a #20 ice cream scoop?  I have no idea, but all my ice cream scoops are about the same size, so I tried two scoops of that, which ended up being way too much batter per muffin.  Instead of ending up with 8-10 muffins, I ended up with 6, and that was only because the last two muffins were made with a single scoop each.

Accordingly, I tried again later on.  This time, I only rose the dough for a half hour (ok, a little longer, because I started out in a colder room, which wasn't very effective, then moved it to sit on the cooler part of my pellet stove, which the yeast really, really liked.)  And this time, I only put in about a scoop of dough, wiggling it around a little to allow it to fill the inside of the rings (on the bottom, anyway.)  Interestingly enough, the end size of the single-scoop muffins was fairly close to the end size of the double scoop ones (no wonder, considering a baking sheet was placed on top of them while cooking . . . the poor double scoop ones were smished and didn't have room to rise), but even more interesting, some of them resulted in reasonably decent crannies.

The most difficult part of the whole enterprise was again, the temperature.  My first group of muffins in the batch turned out much better than the next group, cranny-wise, which I attribute to the fact the griddle hadn't heated up quite as much.  I think I'm going to really have to turn down the griddle once it heats up, for the best results.  Also, when checking for crannies, really do wait for the muffins to cool.  (I know, it's hard . . . it's really hard, because you want to check the results immediately and see if you are doing it right.)  It just works better.

All in all, I like the recipe.  The texture was soft and spongy, the muffins toasted up nicely, and I sometimes did get crannies, which gives me hope I can eventually learn to produce a more consistent muffin.  No wonder Alton Brown recommended cooking them on an electric skillet!  (Too bad for those of us electric skillet-less people . . .)

So enough of the editorializing and on to the recipe!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup non-fat powdered milk (I didn't have this, so I used full-fat powdered milk.)

1 Tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt, divided (Half goes in the initial batter and half goes into the batter just before cooking.)

1 Tablespoon shortening

1 cup hot water

1 envelope dry yeast (with my yeast, a little under a Tablespoon)

1/8 teaspoon sugar

1/3 cup lukewarm water

2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

Non-stick vegetable spray (I didn't have this, either.  My cookware had dire warnings on the box if I used spray, so I stopped buying it years ago.  I ended up using shortning, which was messier, but effective.)

In a bowl, combine the powdered milk, 1 Tablespoon of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, shortening, and hot water.  Stir until the sugar and salt are dissolved.  (The shortening does not need to melt.)  Let it cool.

In a separate bowl, combine the yeast, the 1/8 teaspoon sugar, and the 1/3 cup of lukewarm water and let it sit for about 5 minutes, until the yeast is dissolved.  Then add it to the powdered milk mixture.

Add the sifted flour and beat thoroughly with a wooden spoon.  (Nope!  Not using a stand mixer here.  Not necessary.)  Cover the bowl and let it rest in a warm spot for 30 minutes.

Preheat the griddle to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.  (Here's where it gets difficult for those of us having to use a stove.  Think sort of cooler medium griddle . . .)  Place the metal English muffin rings on the griddle and coat lightly with vegetable spray.  (I greased my rings before placing them on the griddle.)

Add the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of salt to the mixture and beat thoroughly.

Although the recipe did not call for it, I sprinkled cornmeal on my cooking surface.  Using a #20 ice cream scoop, place 2 scoops into each ring.  Cover with a pot lid or cookie sheet and cook for 5-6  minutes.  (I found my regular ice cream scoop worked fine, with only one scoop.  Grease the cookie sheet used to cover the rings.  Trust me.)



This picture is actually showing some with 2 scoops--too much batter.


Remove the lid and flip rings using tongs.  (Good luck keeping those muffins inside the rings if you do this only with tongs.  I used tongs and a spatula.)  Cover with the lid and cook for another 5-6 minutes or until golden brown.


I think my griddle was a little warm here.  The color came out darker.
And, yeah, too much batter . . .


Place the muffins on a cooling rack, remove the rings, and cool.  Split with a fork and serve.

The muffins in this last picture are from my second attempt, using only one scoop of batter, first batch cooked, when the temperature was still cooler.  You can see the color is not as dark as the others, but more importantly, look at the inside!  The texture is spongy, and there are plenty of places for melted butter to hide.  I still haven't perfected this, but I can see the light, and they are delicious enough for me to want to continue working on it.

From start to finish, including "resting" time, these only take about an hour, so it's a simple thing to whip some up in the evening and have them all ready to toast in the morning.  The hardest part is telling the kids they have to save them for breakfast.