I absolutely love English Muffins- I have them all the time for breakfast sandwiches and I can add egg whites, veggies, cheese and stay full all the way until lunchtime.
My girls also love English muffins slathered with butter and homemade jam- a little taste of heaven right?
I decided to try my hand at making English Muffins to see if they were worth the trouble and if I could even make them at all. In my head I was thinking this would just be a fantastic homemade treat for friends and family along with some delicious homemade jam or maybe a flavored butter.
The one thing about English Muffins that I purchase from the store is that they can get a bit too hard once toasted. Especially since I personally don’t add a lot of butter to mine. I am all for nooks and crannies but sometimes I prefer something a bit more moist and less dry.
Now at the risk of boring you to pieces, when I first visited Seattle about 10 years ago I had my first ever English Crumpet. That day still resonates in my mind as one of the most delicious things ever in the entire universe of food. I have never been able to duplicate that first crumpet. The ones I have since found in the store can be quite spongey and just not what I want.
SO- homemade English Muffins to the test! I have been happy with how these turned out but they so require just a bit of work. These are great to make when you want to give a gift or have something extra special for breakfast.
I found the overall texture like a cross between the softness of a crumpet on the inside yet you still get that nice crispy and firm toasty-ness on the outside like an English Muffin. Yeah!
This recipe makes a big batch- about 18 muffins total and you can store them for a few weeks in the fridge in a Ziploc bag.
And here is the recipe:
- 6 cup Flour
- 2 tbsp Sugar
- 2¼ tsp (1 packet) Yeast
- 1 Egg- lightly beaten
- ½ tsp Salt
- 1 cup Milk
- 1 cup warm Water
- 3 tbsp softened Butter
- Corn Meal
- Add yeast to warm water and allow to sit for about 5 minutes until the yeast dissolves.
- Slightly warm your milk and dissolve sugar in it. Set aside to cool.
- Put 3 cups of flour, salt, butter, egg, yeast mix and milk mix into a mixing bowl and beat until smooth.
- Add remaining flour ½ cup at a time until a soft dough forms.
- Knead for 5 minutes in mixer or 10 minutes by hand.
- Place dough in a buttered bowl to avoid sticking and cover and let rise until doubled (roughly 1 to 1½ hours).
- Line 2 cookie sheets with wax paper and dust each with corn meal.
- Grab a scoop of dough and roll into a ball and gently press down to a 3" diameter.
- You should get about 18 balls in total from the recipe.
- Place each on the wax paper and dust tops with corn meal.
- Cover and allow to rise for another 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 200.
- Grease and heat griddle over medium low heat.
- Cook muffins about 10 minutes each side until golden brown.
- Transfer cooked muffins to oven to keep warm.
- Allow to cool completely before storing.
So this is a great recipe for a Sunday afternoon at home- you can get the dough started and then take care of other things and just come back to finish it. We actually made a batch of these last weekend to drop off as a welcome gift to some new neighbors that moved in. My sweet husband made the English Muffins while I was running the girls to ballet and such and considering he is not normally the baker in the house, I was nervous about the outcome. His turned out perfectly and he said he thought the recipe was pretty easy to recreate- just a little extra time for the dough to rise and such.
Oh and one last note, I always find I have better luck with fresh yeast as opposed to yeast that I might have stored in the cabinet for awhile. I tend to buy fresh each time and not stock up at the store- especially since it is so inexpensive in the little strips.
Hopefully you like the results- we sure loved these!
And as I mentioned, you can give these as a really cute and original gift by adding some homemade jam or a flavored butter.
And if you like this recipe, here are a few other recipes to try:
Homemade Blackberry Jam-– sooo good!
Wow! Im totally impressed! Sounds so good!
Ha ha! I hope you try them and see what you think 🙂
I am a little confused as to why you preheat the oven if you are cooking on a griddle? Can you please clarify this for me? 🙂
Hi Jessica- just to keep them warm. If you don’t need to serve them warm you can skip that step.
Just made these! They’re still hot but I ate one and oh man are they delicious!!! I just realized I never added the egg in the ingredients list because it wasn’t mentioned in the intructions so I skipped it. Anyways thanks for another awesome recipe!! DELICIOUS! Oh and I made the homemade butter too…holy cow! Tastes way better than store bought!
Gotcha… Thanks 🙂
Ah!! What a dummy! Thanks for pointing that out Dorothy! I am thrilled they turned out well for you… yes that butter is so delicious 🙂 Really such a treat to have real muffins and real butter right?
Can you use the bread machine to make the dough?
So does the egg go in with the milk? My griddle has a thermostat… do you know what temperature should I set it for?
Looking forward to trying this recipe.
Hi Ceejay– yes in with the milk 🙂
Ela- I believe that would be fine. I have not personally tried it as I don’t have a bread machine but if you have a dough setting that should work!
Can you freeze these?
Can this recipe be halved, or are there some adjustments that need to be made?
Ooh, I’ll have to try this recipe! I think I’ll try it with half whole wheat flour. Also, a note about yeast. I always buy it in bulk. It’s much cheaper that way. After I open it, I put it in a ziplock bag in the freezer and it stays good for a long time.
These are amazing!!! I make a few slightly larger and use them as hamburger buns, so good!!!
Thanks so much Erin! I really appreciate that you took the time to come back and comment. Hamburgers sound delicious with these!