English Muffins

I get a lot of pleasure by being able to make some of the things I used to buy regularly at the grocery store. One of those things is ... English Muffins. Now don't get me wrong. There is nothing seriously wrong with store bought muffins although admittedly I never actually examined their ingredient list, and of course there is something to be said for convenience ... BUT ... being able to recreate a good fresh home made English Muffin with melting butter oozing into every one of what should be numerous nooks and crannies is an experience everyone should have, at least once in their lifetime. I have tried several recipes with various levels of success and failure but the one listed below gave me the  best result for the type of muffin I was looking for ... lightly toasted on top and bottom with a dense somewhat spongy interior that toasted up nicely. These were also not your average bready muffins either, like some store bought pretenders are, but holey wonders with large and small pockets just waiting for you to fill with butter and/or your favorite spread. Luckily it's a LOT easier than you'd think as well! If you can make pancakes ... you can make English Muffins! Yum!

The only caveat I have is that you need at least one piece of special equipment ... an English Muffin *ring* or maybe several ... the good news is, an empty and clean tuna can with the top and bottom removed, will do just fine, as would a smooth round METAL cookie/biscuit cutter about 3" in diameter, although I did go to the effort to buy muffin rings at a kitchen specialty store ... cost about $5 for 4 rings.

On to the recipe!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup non fat powdered milk (do not substitute liquid milk for the water in this recipe, you must use powdered milk ... it's science, trust me, you want the goodness that you get in the powder without any added liquid and using milk volume for volume, in place of the water just doesn't work ... think of the dry milk as concentrated goodness and you need it concentrated for this recipe to work.)
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt (divided - see directions)
• 1 Tbsp shortening
• 1 cup HOT water
• 1 envelope (2.25 tsp) active dry yeast
• 1/3 cup warm water
• 2 cups all purpose flour, sifted ( or up to 50% whole grain whole wheat flour in place of the all purpose flour to make these a little healthier)
• Non stick vegetable spray (this is important I tried greasing with butter once and all I got was a mess)

Directions:

1. In a small bowl combine the dry milk powder with 1 Tbsp sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, and shortening. Pour in HOT water and stir until the sugar and salt are dissolved and shortening is melted. Set aside and let cool until just slightly warm. While this mixture is cooling you can proof your yeast.
2. In a small cup measure combine the dry yeast with a pinch (1/8 tsp) of sugar. Pour in 1/3 cup lukewarm water ... slightly warm to the touch will do you don't want it too hot or it will kill the yeast. Set aside to proof the yeast. In about 5-10 minutes you should start to see the mixture begin to froth. If it doesn't, your yeast is no good, get some fresh and try again ;)
3. Add the proofed yeast mixture to the cooled dry milk mixture. Add the sifted flour and beat thoroughly with a wooden spoon (why wooden? I have NO idea) The batter should be quite thick but still appear to be slightly *pourable* kind of like a really thick pancake batter.
4. Cover the bowl and set aside in a warm draft free spot for 30 minutes to rest. 
5. Meanwhile, preheat a griddle, or in my case a large FLAT non stick high sided pan with lid (my chicken frying pan works nicely but an electric frying pan would be perfect) to 300' F
6. After the half hour resting period add the remaining 1/2 tsp salt and beat thoroughly to combine.
7. Grease the insides of the metal ring(s) well with NON STICK VEGETABLE SPRAY ... (I tried butter and shortening once and both time the batter stuck to the rings like glue but for some reason PAM works perfectly and my muffins slid right off)
8. Place rings on the (dry ungreased) griddle and spoon 2 large spoonfuls of batter into each ring. Smudge the batter a bit to try and fill the ring but don't worry too much it will flatten out a bit as it cooks and odd shaped muffins are a conversation piece. A neat trick, if you have one, is to use an ice cream scoop ... the kind with a mechanical squeeze handle and a slider that helps eject the batter into the ring but like I said using a spoon with maybe a second one to tease the thick batter into the ring works just as well. The batter should be just below the top of the ring or about 1/2" thick, it will rise slightly as it cooks.
9. Cover with a pot lid or cookie sheet and cook for 5-6 minutes or until crisp and golden brown then flip and do the other side. When you flip the muffin, the ring might fall off. That's ok it's already done it's job, in fact I generally remove mine even before I flip, as I find it just gets in the way otherwise. It should just slide right off ... if you used Pam like I told you to ;)
10. Cover the pan again and cook until the second side is done (5-6 minutes) then remove from heat and let cool on a rack. ***SEE NOTE BELOW***
11. Split with a fork to serve or store in a tightly sealed plastic bag once completely cooled until needed. Freezes well. Makes 7-8 muffins.depending on how large you make them but mine tend to be big so I only get 7. 

NOTE: I generally use half whole wheat flour in my muffins (unlike the recipe listed above) to make them a little healthier and doing so, each muffin works out to about 175 calories each with about 2g of fiber, based on getting 7 muffins out of this recipe instead of 8 ... if you get 8 muffins they are about 153 calories per muffin.  If using all white flour I imagine the calories would be similar for each type but you would not get the added fiber that whole wheat gives you.


NOTE** Ok I am updating this recipe a bit. I am not sure what's up with my stove but it always seems to cook hot and these browned up much faster than they should have today. I have one of those solid element stoves that take forever to heat up OR cool down so I just cooked my last batch of muffins til they looked about the right colour (about 3 minutes per side) then put them on a rack placed on a cookie sheet to raise them up off the surface, and finished them for 15 minutes in a pre-heated oven set at 350'. Seemed to work, so if your muffins brown so quickly on the outside that you think the insides might not have had the chance to cooked all the way through, you can try doing what I did. Guess I don't have this recipe perfected completely but in the end it all worked out. I'd recommend storing these in the fridge until needed.

Perfect straight from the toaster with butter or maybe a dab of peanut butter ;)