English Muffins

As we prepare for our move down to Virginia next month, we've slowly started packing boxes. Besides finding great memories in scrapbooks and picture albums, I also took some time to look through the endless number of cookbooks I own. It actually reminded me of a challenge I gave myself a while back: cook as many recipes from my cookbooks as possible.

I was doing so well with this challenge at first, but to be quite honest Pinterest derailed me. Are you surprised? Pinterest has so many wonderful recipes, with such beautiful pictures, it's easy to forget about all those cookbooks! But I challenged myself and while I love trying Pinterest recipes, I also want to make good use of all those cookbooks.

This morning I found just the way to do that! I had just whipped up a homemade batch of peanut butter to discover we had absolutely no bread products at home. Luckily, I had just flipped through my Best of Food Network book last night and remembered spotting an English muffin recipe. English muffins for breakfast? Perfect!

The muffins didn't look like Thomas', but they were easy to make and very tasty. I will definitely be making them again! They also gave me a good excuse to use these metal rings I had purchased ages ago and never really used. You can probably make the muffins without them, but the rings help give them a nice round shape.


Ingredients:
1/2 cup powdered milk
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp + 1 tsp melted butter (The original recipe calls for 1 tbsp of shortening, which we didn't have at home)
1 cup hot water
1 envelope or 2 1/4 tsp dry active yeast
1/8 tsp sugar
1/3 cup warm water
1/2 cup wheat flour
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt

Supplies Needed:
electric griddle or griddle pan for on the stove
butter or cooking spray
metal rings (like the kind you use to make pancakes or eggs)

Directions:
Combine powdered milk, sugar, butter and hot water. Stir until dissolved, then let cool.
In a separate bowl combine sugar, warm water and yeast. Stir gently and let proof for 5-10 minutes. You'll know the yeast is active when it starts to foam.
Add this yeast mixture to the milk mixture and stir.
Slowly sift in the flour, stirring the mixture with a wooden spoon.
Beat thoroughly, then cover with a towel and let rise for 30 min.

Uncover your mix, beat in 1/2 tsp salt.
Lightly grease the griddle with butter or cooking spray. I used a griddle on the stove, but recommend an electric griddle where you can control the temperature, which should be 300 degrees.

Place metal rings on the griddle and fill with about 2 tablespoon of the mix. Spread it out as much as you can. The mixture will be very sticky and you'll be tempted to overfill the rings to cover every inch. Don't! The dough will rise and you'll get gigantic English muffins.

Cover the griddle with a big pot lid or a cookie sheet. Cook for about 5 min or until golden brown, then turn the muffins over and cook for another 5 min.

Since I only had 2 metal rings, I removed the muffins from the rings after flipping them over, so I could start the next batch. It's easiest to do this with a small knife.
If you're using a griddle on the stove, make sure to check your heat so you don't burn the bottoms.

Voila! You've got English muffins!

The recipe makes about 8-10 English muffins depending on how thick you make them.

They're best warm, fresh off the griddle and can be served with peanut butter, jelly, strawberry butter (recipe coming soon), eggs (think EggMcMuffin) and however you usually eat English muffins.