I'd looked at several recipes on Pinterest, but my mother reminded me that I should look at the Cream of the West Cook Book. Of course! I pulled it out and noticed that on a post-it note on the cover, English muffins and a page number were listed. I flipped to the page and read the recipe. It would make 3 dozen.
Now, that's a lot of English muffins for one person (especially if that person is trying to be carb-aware). I decided that I would half the recipe and a little after 7pm started the process. I was worried about the amount of salt because it seemed a bit high, but was impressed with the dough's texture. I left it to rise for an hour.
When I came back, it was time to roll and cut the muffins. It was a little strange to be rolling a yeast dough like that, but it cut beautifully and the corn meal on the cutting board and sheet pans kept it from sticking. (Pro tip: don't try to re-roll -- it really doesn't work.) I left them for another 30 minutes.
Now was the moment of truth. Every recipe I'd read indicated that you were to use a griddle pan to griddle the English muffins. I don't own one. I also don't have a large cast iron pan, which I assume would work just as well. Instead, I had a large orange skillet that came in my Rachel Ray set. I could fit four muffins in it at a time. I had 14 muffins. They had to cook for 12 minutes. It was going to be a bit of a marathon.
I didn't want to leave them at all during the process because I was afraid they would burn, so I stood watch through 4 batches. The corn meal kept them from sticking and with the pan on heat mark "3" I got a beautiful colour on them.
And they smelled so good! I'm sure it was driving my neighbours crazy.
I finished all the batches and then couldn't resist eating one of the still-warm muffins with butter. They tasted better than any English muffin I'd ever tasted. Indeed, I couldn't help but mark a 10/10 in the cook book for future reference.
And this morning I enjoyed one with my father's legendary raspberry jam...
So delicious!
Have you ever made English muffins? What's your favourite recipe?
