English Muffins

I love English muffins, and all sorts of breakfast toast things. I found a recipe on the internet, and got obsessed with the idea. I was intimidated by the idea of getting special crumpet rings, what if it didn't work. And then I stumbled on someone's suggestion online of using the rings for canning jam. Easy to find, easy to do something else with if you don't like making English muffins or crumpets (crumpets are also on my list of things to figure out making.)

I mixed up the dough, and then let it sit out to rise and did other things around the kitchen, like dishes. Like pancakes, do one first, to make sure the frying pan is the right temperature. Lightly grease the frying pan and pour cornmeal all over the place. (I used polenta, because that is all I had. It works fine.) Place the jar rings in the pot, and scoop batter in. The batter is very glutenous, stringy and stuck together. I put about one ice cream scoop worth of stuff inside.

If you have the rings greased well enough, when you flip the muffins, the rings will come off in your tongs. That's fine; you can be done with the rings. They should be cooked with a lid over the frying pan, to keep the heat in. When they're well cooked, put them in the oven, to ensure that they're cooked all the way through.

 

 Serve them warm. Split with a fork. Slather with butter, with jam, or experiment with Biscoff Spread. (Biscoff Spread is totally weird and delicious, it tastes like a cookie spread over your English muffin.) Mine were a little denser than store bought, and they didn't have quite as many holes, but they were still delicious.

English Muffins

Adapted from Alton Brown

makes 10-12 English muffins

Ingredients 1
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp butter
1 tsp salt
1/2 c milk
1/2 c water

Ingredients 2
1 envelope of yeast (or 1 1/2 tsp, if you're like me and don't buy yeast in packets)
1/8 tsp sugar
1/3 c warm water

Ingredients 3
2 c flour


Microwave the water, milk, and butter for Ingredients 1. Add sugar and salt, stir until dissolved. Let cool. Meanwhile, mix together Ingredients 2, stir until the yeast is dissolved. Mix 1 and 2 together, and add flour.

Let rise at least 30 minutes.

While frying pan is preheating, grease jar lids.

Grease the frying pan, pour on corn meal. Put down the jar lids, with the flat part on top, like the top of the jar. Pour put the batter into rings, using an ice cream scoop. Cover frying pan with lid, and cook five minutes. Pick up the rings with tongs to flip, if the ring comes up, use a spatula to flip like a pancake. Cover, cook another five minutes. When the outside looks thoroughly cooked, take out of frying pan and put in oven at 300.