Fresh English muffins

The beautiful weather in Vancouver has been incredible. Waking up to sunshine streaming through my window; not having to bundle up in the afternoon, unless you stay in the shadows; plus the days are getting longer which means no more double days of training in the dark! The sunshine makes getting up early much easier and seems to be advantageous for a productive day.

Being productive for more hours of the day means that I’ve started to mess around with some recipes that take a little bit more time. I love breakfast sandwiches and an English muffin is a key ingredient for a good sandwich. I’ve always wanted to try and make them from scratch, but never felt like I had the time. They aren’t hard to make, they just have a number of steps that require a couple hours of waiting for the dough to rise several times before being able to cook them.

This recipe made excellent English muffins, but don’t look like the conventional store-bought ones. They are a little more of a cross between a bagel and an English muffin. They don’t have the big “holes” in the dough once they had finished rising, but remained fluffy and delicious. Interestingly, they aren’t baked in the oven. They’re cooked in a pan on the stovetop to get the perfectly browned outer crust with a soft center. It’s important not to rush the cooking of them as the high heat can burn the outside and be fully cooked through. When putting the muffins in the pan, they are little dough disks, but with the low heat of the pan they rise into the size of a typical English muffin.

When I made these delicious little morsels, I topped them with scrambled eggs, cheese, avocado, pico de gallo and a garnish of cilantro. They are also great with butter and jam and a little snack between meals.

English Muffins

Recipe from Budget Bytes

Prep time: 2 hour 30 minutes

Cook time: 45 minutes

Total time: 3 hours 15 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp active dry yeast
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• ½ cup milk
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 3 cups flour, divided
• ¾ tsp salt
• ¼ cup cornmeal
• as needed non-stick spray

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, combine the yeast, sugar and ½ cup of warm water. Stir to dissolve the sugar and yeast. Let sit about five minutes or until foamy on top.
2. While the yeast/sugar mixture is resting, combine 1.5 cups of the flour and salt in a large bowl. Stir well to evenly distribute the salt. In a second small bowl, combine the milk and butter. Microwave the milk/butter for 30 seconds, stir and microwave again for 30 seconds. Stir the butter until it melts into the warm milk.
3. Pour the yeast mixture and the milk mixture into the flour. Stir until it has combined into a pasty mix. Adding ¼ cup at a time, stir in more flour until the dough forms a soft, slightly sticky ball that pulls away from the bowl. I added about ¾ cup to get it to this point.
4. Sprinkle a little bit of flour onto a clean countertop and coat your hands in flour. Dump the soft ball of dough out of the bowl and knead it for about five minutes. Add as little flour as possible to the countertop while kneading. Adding too much flour will yield tough muffins.
5. Shape the dough into a ball and place it in a bowl that has been coated in non-stick spray. Lightly spray the top of the dough and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise until double in size (about 45 minutes – one hour).
6. Punch the dough down, shape it into another ball, cover the dough and let rise a second time (45 minutes – 1 hour, or until double).
7. Punch down the dough again and turn it out onto a well floured countertop. Using a rolling pin, lightly roll the dough until it is about ¾ inch thick. Using a cookie cutter or a large round glass, cut the dough into circles. When you can’t cut out any more circles, gently ball the remaining dough, roll again and cut more. It gets more difficult to ball and roll out each time so fit as many circles in the dough as possible before balling it up again.
8. Place the cut dough circles onto a sheet pan that has been liberally covered in cornmeal. Sprinkle more cornmeal on top of the muffins. Cover loosely with a damp towel and let rise, once more, until double in size (another 45 minutes).
9. Heat a large skillet over medium-low heat. Spray the pan with non-stick spray. Carefully transfer the fluffy, risen muffins to the hot skillet with a spatula. Cook the muffins, in batches, in the skillet until they are golden brown and crispy on each side. Make sure to keep the heat low so that the outside browns slowly, allowing time for the inside to bake. I cooked mine for about seven minutes on each side but this will vary from stove to stove.
10. Let the muffins cool on a wire rack before attempting to slice open. Toast the split muffins in a toaster.