English Muffins–Take Two!

Ok, sorry for another delay in posting but I’ve had another drawback with my back.  Apparently it doesn’t want to heal as fast as I’d like it to so I’m back to moving very slowly.  I also require a brace for now and so my ability around the kitchen is a bit limited.  I’m still baking as you can see, just not as often as I’d like.  I thank you all for your patience with my healing, you have been great for coming back to visit!

Enough about my pity party, lets get on with why you are all here.  The sweets or in this case the savory treats!

I was watching my favourite TV channel last week, the Food Network and was watching the show, The Best Thing I Ever Ate.  One of the contributors, can’t remember his name, was in love with English Muffins from a bakery in Napa.  They used focaccia dough and thought that was pretty cool.  A couple days later I made pizza dough for dinner for the kids but they wanted something else and since I forgot to mention to Rob that I had made the dough, he offered them pasta.  So now I’ve got dough and I could just use it tomorrow or…

ooooh oooh that show used focaccia and pizza dough isn’t really that different.  Why not????  So I put the dough into the fridge over night and when I got up (way too early) I rolled it out and cut them with my circle cutter and let them proof.  Now this bakery also used butter in the pan instead of a dry pan with corn meal, so lets try that too!

I pulled out my cast iron pan (one of my favourite pans) and put it on medium-low heat.  I then coated the cut pieces of dough in corn meal and put aside.  Once the pan was heated, I added 1 tablespoon of butter to the pan and added 3 to 4 muffins.  They baked for 7-10 minutes until golden brown, then I flipped and baked again for 7-10 minutes.  I pulled them out of the pan and set them aside while I repeated for the rest of the muffins, about 18 in total.

I really loved my first attempt at English Muffins using the King Arthur Flour recipe, but these were hands down better.  The dough is so simple or you can even buy ready made pizza dough at the store but it’s the butter in the pan that brought them to a new level.  These were amazing.  My next door neighbour has started to call me Mrs Crocker.  I’ll take that as a complement thank you!  Rob even said they tasted like more

Recipe:

• 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (1 pkg)
• 1 1/3 cup warm water
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp sugar

1. In the bowl of a mix master with dough hook, add all ingredients.  Mix on low until combined and then increase to medium low and knead for 5 minutes.  If you don’t have a mixer you can do this by hand but you need to put your back into it
2. Once kneaded, coat with a little oil and place back into bowl and let rise for an hour.  Punch down and put into fridge over night.
3. Next morning, take out of fridge and knead until warm.  Roll out and cut into circles.  Dust with corn meal and let rise an hour.
4. Using a cast iron skillet (if you have one, if not no worries) put on med-low.  Add a tablespoon of unsalted butter and place 3-4 (depending on size of pan).  Fry for 7-10 minutes, flip and fry for another 7-10 minutes.
5. Remove from pan and continue making the muffins until all are fried.
6. When still warm, slice and smother with jam or butter.  Bet you can’t eat just one!
7. Enjoy!

These are without a doubt delicious.

Thanks for looking!