English Muffins!

The next morning, toasted with a farm fresh egg in the middle

These were crazy. I made a colossal mess-up, but somehow they pulled through. It started in the morning, when I woke up and it was a BEAUTIFUL sunny day. Immediately, I became over-ambitious and planned many things for the day. So I was a bit rushed when I frantically searched for a recipe for sourdough english muffins. I quickly skimmed a few and thought I knew what I was doing when I added 2 cups of flour and water to my starter discard. I confidently declared that we must wait 8 hours and then we can “bake them.” Off I went on my day. 9 hours later I figured I should start doing something with them, and swished my now just giant bowl starter around, pleased with the activity and unaware that it wasn’t supposed to be just that. I figured I should reread the recipe, looking for the next step. That’s when I realized I was not supposed to add water, and was supposed to add milk and honey as well. Then knead the dough and let it rise for 3-4 hours. Where I got “let it sit for 8 hours” I have no idea. Panicked, I added flour and kneaded like hell, forgetting about the milk and honey. Then I remembered the milk and honey and kneaded like hell again, my roommates laughing at my emotional roller-coaster of a muffin. At 11:00 pm, I was tired, I knew that the dough theoretically wanted another hour of fermentation, but frankly, I didn’t really care. Fricket like a cricket and lets bake these muffins.

Fryin them up! They puff up on the bottom half that touches the pan, so when you flip them you get that perfect 2 halves of a whole and easy to pull apart!

The cool thing about English muffins is that you don’t actually bake them. Instead, you cook them in a pan on a stove. I used a cast iron pan and instead of cornmeal (since we didn’t have it) I just put some flour on the bottom. I plopped them in with very little faith that they would turn out nice. Meanwhile, my roommates were planning on using my failed muffin dough to make doughnuts in the airfryer, and subsequently stole several globs of dough. I eyed them suspiciously but stuck with my muffins. And alas, they rose beautifully!!!! Halfway through I flipped them over, reveling over their english-muffinness. I had made enough dough for maybe 15 muffins, planning on saving them and eating them for breakfast the whole week. By 11:45, all but two of the freshly baked muffins were devoured by my faithless roommates, their doughnuts not even coming close to the satisfaction of pulling the muffin apart and watching it steam while spreading jam and honey over them. Flabbergasted, they succeeded. I’m excited to try them again, this time with more intention and care, to really get a foolproof recipe out of them.

Barely got this pic as they were being gobbled up so quick as they came out of the pan!!!

In summary:

2-3 cups starter? idk it was a bowl full

1-2 cups flour? I dumped all of our remaining all purpose flour into the bowl

1/4 cup milk (I used soymilk)

1/4 cup honey

I probably also added salt, but can’t remember doing so, so perhaps not.

Kneaded until it looked kinda nice and formed, kinda smooth but not too smooth. Let rise 2.5/3 hours until I felt like baking them, but every 30 min I gave them a stretch/tuck and fold.

Roll chunks of dough in flour (ideally cornmeal, but I didn’t have any on hand)

“Bake” on a stove in a cast iron pan (or normal pan) for about 10 min, flipping halfway through