English Muffins

Honestly is there anything better than a delicious, freshly toasted English muffins with butter melting into the nooks and jelly filling those crannies? I might just have the answer for you. These muffins made at home make the whole experience that much better.

I’m not sure why but I always thought English muffins would be complicated to make and have some process to them that I wasn’t really into doing myself. turns out they are incredibly easy to make when they are homemade. Yum, they are much better than anything you can find at a grocery store.

Ingredients you will need to make your own English muffins

• Warm water- if you hold your wrist under the running water and it feels like you could hold it there forever without freezing or burning you are in the sweet spot and your water is the perfect temp.
• Sugar- gives the yeast something to eat and helps to make the bubbles in the dough.
• Yeast- active dry yeast
• Vegetable oil- you can also use canola or a light olive oil.
• All purpose flour- Bread flour would work as well
• Salt
• cornmeal – for that recognizable English muffin texture.

How to make

1. Activate yeast

add water, yeast and sugar to a large bowl then give it a quick stir and allow it to set while the yeast activates. if your yeast is not foaming up and making bubbles you may have burned your yeast with water that is too hot or your yeast is no longer working and you will need to get more.

unless you see the foam there is no reason to add the rest of the ingredients, your muffins will not work.

2. add your ingredients

add flour, oil and salt

mix with a spoon until the dough comes together. you can do this with a stand mixer and dough hook. timing will be a bit different if you do. Then turn it out onto a clean dry surface.

3. Start kneading

knead by hand until the dough becomes smooth and begins to firm up. It should only take about 5-6 minutes.

4. Rise

Spray the bowl with oil and place the dough ball into the bowl. cover with plastic wrap or a clean towel. Place in a warm spot to rise and double in size. about 1 hour. placing your bowl in your oven with the light turned on can help to rise the dough if your room in a bit on the cold side. Some ovens also have bread rise settings that can help.

5. Divide your dough

punch down the dough then turn in out onto the dry surface. divide the dough into 10 equal parts

sprinkle a baking tray with a thin layer of cornmeal.

shape each portion of dough into a ball the flatten a bit and place them on the cornmeal in the baking tray.

6. Take a rest

cover with a loose kitchen towel and allow them to rest for 20 min

7. Fry

place a large frying pan on the stove and heat over low heat. your first batch of muffins might be like the first pancake and if you are like me you might burn the first one. I had my stove top set to a medium-low temp and had to turn it down to low.

place as many English muffins as will fit without crowding on the dry frying pan. I was able to fit 4 in my pan comfortably.

cover and allow to cook for about 5 min or until the bottom of each muffin is nice and golden brown. (cooking temperatures will vary so keep a close eye on your first batch to gauge your timming going forward)

flip the muffins in the pan then cover and cook the other side.

8. Bake

place fried muffins on a clean baking sheet

pre heat oven to 350℉

bake muffins in the oven for 5 min. Internal temp of the muffin should be around 200℉. if you have reached that with frying alone you can skip the baking part.

you may need to increase your baking time in the oven if while cooking the muffins in the pan, the temperature was too high and the outside cooked too fast for the inside to reach the right temp.

9. Cool your English Muffins

allow muffins to cool completely on a cooling rack before storing them in an air-tight container.

Looking for other breakfast Ideas?

Why not make some of these delicious home made plain bagels. So easy and perfect for quick weekday breakfasts