I am not ashamed to admit that I like English Muffins more than I like regular toast or bread. I just do. So when I was scrolling through Pinterest one day and I saw a recipe for Homemade English Muffins from blog Budget Bytes, I thought that I should do a review for them because if there’s one thing I love, it is homemade well, anything. If I don’t need to buy something premade, I don’t.
The only ingredients I had to actually go to the store for were active dry yeast and cornmeal. Now, let me give you a tip: cornmeal is not with the baking ingredients. I looked in that aisle for a solid 5-10 minutes. You will find cornmeal in the cereal aisle with flax etc.
So, to review…
Prep
The dough for these homemade English muffins is really quite easy. The directions are straight forward, although i found that after I placed them into the oven (it was off) to rise, I looked at the photos on the blog and there were additional directions and tips. So I wish that either I had looked at the whole post before I got started or that the directions in the post were the same as the ones following the photos (the latter, duh).
I took the dough out of the bowl after about 2.5 cups of flour and then kneaded by hand for 5 minutes. I used 1/2 cup more flour as I was kneading, so altogether, I did use 3 cups of flour. I wonder how these would turn out with different types of flour? I think I’ll try gluten free some time, just so you anyone who might have celiac knows they too can enjoy a homemade English muffin!
This dough was really easy to roll out and cut circles out of. I scattered the cornmeal along a baking sheet and placed the circles on it without realizing I was supposed to get cornmeal on both sides of the dough so I had to sprinkle some cornmeal on the top sides part way through rising.
As suggested in this blog post, I boiled some water and poured it into a casserole dish to put on the bottom rack of the oven to keep the dough moist while it rose. It definitely worked! I don’t know too much about the science behind this – but I am wondering if it is part of the reason my dough rose so much? Long story short, I should have kept a closer eye on the rising dough rather than just turn on a timer and go about my day. Lesson learned and now I am going to remind myself to Google if the extra heat and moisture made the dough rise quicker.
The dough circles ended up growing and touching each other. The post mentioned to try and avoid this because they could flatten when you took them apart. To hopefully avoid flat English muffins, I separated them with my flipper right before I put them onto the skillet. I found the dough to be quite delicate, so try not to handle them with your hands! Flipper only!
Cooking
The toughest thing I found about making homemade English muffins, was that it is kind of difficult to know if they are done if you’re not sure what to look for. Mine rose quite a bit, so I think they took a bit longer to cook. I probably left them on the skillet for at least 5 minutes per side. I found the ones that turned brown, were cooked best. That being said, I found them to brown better on the second side, so maybe there was too much cornmeal on the first side? So many reasons to make these again!
I was really excited to try these but the directions say to let them cool on a rack. I did, but it took a lot of patience! I felt like even on a cooling rack, they took quite a while to cool (keep in mind, I was eager to try these so even if it took only five minutes for them to cool, it felt like a lifetime).
Before I give you a few yummy suggestions on how to enjoy your homemade English muffins, I’ll toss another hint your way! The directions say to use a fork to pry the English muffins open. I found if I poked a fork through the seam around the whole muffin, it was easiest to pull it apart. You can also just cut it with a knife, obviously.
If you follow the directions exactly, you will be just fine making these homemade English muffins. I have never even baked bread before, but these were a cinch! So next time you’ve got a lazy morning, stay in your pyjamas and give these a go!
Here are a few suggestions on how to enjoy your homemade English muffins:
- smashed avocado, hemp hearts, salt and pepper
- peanut butter, ground flax and sliced banana
- jam or jelly (my favourite is strawberry)
- straight up peanut butter
- fried egg, bacon, tomato and cheese
- classic peanut butter and jam (or honey)
