Re-post on English Muffins

Since there has been a lot of talk about the English Muffin recipe I posted several years ago, I wanted to re-post it.

Here is the recipe:

English Muffins

Mix and let stand 5 minutes:

1 T yeast

2 T sugar

1/2 cup warm water

Add and mix well:

1 1/2 cups warm milk

1/4 cup oil

1 t salt

3 cups flour

Add and knead in:

3 cups flour (you can use whole wheat flour here to make whole wheat muffins)

Let rise. Roll out dough and cut into 3 inch circles. Place on a cookie sheet sprinkled with a little cornmeal. Let rise 1 inch high. Cook on a heavy ungreased griddle, turning at least three times until both sides are brown. Split open with a fork.

First, I want to encourage those of you who don't think you can do this. Yes you can! This is a very simple recipe, as bread recipes go, and requires very little effort on your part. If you have a mixer with a kneading attachment, it will make it even easier. If not, the only real effort you will expend is muscle energy.

As mentioned in my previous post, this recipe has yeast in it, to help the bread rise. If you use the right temperature of water (between 105 and 120F), the yeast should activate and look like the above photo.

I mixed the milk, salt, oil and flour then slowly added the yeast mixture. I used my KitchenAid kneading attachment and slowly mixed everything together.
Then I added the three cups of whole wheat flour and kneaded for about five more minutes. I transfered the dough to a greased Pyrex dish and covered it with plastic wrap, then placed it in my warm oven. You don't need to warm the oven, but it helps it rise a little faster.

About an hour later, I pulled it out and found it had risen perfectly.

It was the perfect situation for little hands to be involved. I try to include Sam every time I bake bread and punching down the dough is one of his favorite past times.

Then we rolled it out - another joy of Sam's. He is such a great helper.

Finally, we cut out little circles and placed them on a couple cookie sheets with some cornmeal sprinkled on them. I covered them with kitchen towels and set them aside for another half hour.
Once they were about an inch tall, I put them on my warmed cast iron skillet. I love my skillet and use it at least one time every day - it is so versatile.

The end result: perfectly browned whole wheat English muffins - made with fresh goat's milk for that extra nutrition. We ate them with smoked beef brisket, butternut squash bisque and fresh Swiss chard from the local Farmer's Market.