17. May 2020

English Muffins

english.jpg

These English muffins made me realize I liked English muffins. Grocery store ones just have, that…taste? Maybe some bitterness or something? Anyway, these don’t. They’re super flavorful and not too time consuming. This recipe is based on BA’s best English muffins but due to a typo (or something?) their recipe is nonsense. It is 108% hydration. That is not a dough, that is a batter. If you actually made their recipe you would get pancakes. I adapted it to bring it to a reasonable hydration (80%) & add 100g sourdough starter.

If you don’t have starter, just add 50g of flour and 50g of water to the recipe

Yield: About 12, I think? Maybe 14. I can’t remember.

Time: 30 minutes -> Overnight -> 2h in the morning.

Dough

  • 100g mature sourdough starter, the fruitier the better
  • 108g water @ 80f
  • 370g bread flour (this recipe is high hydration, if you don’t have bread flour, you may want to reduce the water)
  • 2tsp instant yeast
  • 168g buttermilk, warmed (I didn’t have any buttermilk – I made a very DIY buttermilk with water, dried milk powder, and vinegar. YMMV)
  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 4 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • 2 tsp salt

I didn’t really change anything from BA’s method, so this is abbreivated. In case of confusion, just follow the link/video above.

Make the Dough

  1. Mix it all together in a stand mixer. Add the liquid first, as always, to avoid getting stuff stuck to the sides ~ 5 minutes.

  2. Transfer to bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Divide and Shape

  1. Divide into 3oz portions.
  2. Because this dough is so wet, I prefer a pull-and-fold method as opposed the the way I would normally shape rolls (stretching over my thumbs) – see the video. Basically, go around in circle grabbing a small segment and folding it over to the center. Repeat until taut. With a bench scraper, flip, then shape like a mini boule: drag 1”, rotate 90 degrees, repeat, until it’s standing tall and proud on the counter.

The recipe says cornmeal which I don’t have. I used a 50/50 blend of rice and bread flour which works well in almost every situation

Place shaped muffins onto sheet pans lined with parchment paper and floured. I used Amazon basics Silpat.

  1. Let sit at room temp (76f) until doubled in size (60-70 minutes)

Griddle & Bake

  1. Preheat oven to 350
  2. In a skillet, griddle, whatever, over low heat, cook the muffins until golden brown ~ 5-7 minutes on the each side. Transfer to oven and bake 5-10 more minutes.
  3. Allow to cool 30 minutes.

Storage

I froze these. It was ok but to be honest, you loose some of the texture. They are still delicious, but its probably best to just eat them fresh!

The LatestT