The Baking Journal
English Muffins
3/2/2023 | 7m 4sVideo has Closed Captions
Stephanie makes the most delicious English Muffins with all the nooks and crannies!
An English Muffin is a staple of the breakfast items. However, once you've tried them homemade you simply cannot enjoy the store bought stuff the same way. Although this recipe does take a little more of your time, it is not too difficult to put together and you will not regret giving it a try. Join us for this episode where Stephanie shows you just how worth it these English Muffins are to make!
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Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
The Baking Journal is a local public television program presented by CET
The Baking Journal
English Muffins
3/2/2023 | 7m 4sVideo has Closed Captions
An English Muffin is a staple of the breakfast items. However, once you've tried them homemade you simply cannot enjoy the store bought stuff the same way. Although this recipe does take a little more of your time, it is not too difficult to put together and you will not regret giving it a try. Join us for this episode where Stephanie shows you just how worth it these English Muffins are to make!
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- This recipe is so good, you're never gonna buy English muffins at the store again.
Let me show you how.
(gentle upbeat music) (gentle upbeat music continues) I was watching "The Best British Baking Show" one day and they made these English muffins during the technical challenge.
That's what inspired me to really give it a go.
They are so delicious.
You are really gonna love 'em.
Let's start by mixing the water, milk and sugar together in a microwave safe container.
Microwave the mixture for about a minute or so.
You want your liquid to be a little warmer than room temperature.
I like to use a thermometer to check the temperature of the liquid before I add the yeast.
It should be about 110 to 115 degrees Fahrenheit.
Stir in the yeast and set it aside for five minutes until the yeast wakes up and gets nice and foamy.
When that's ready, add one beaten egg and the melted butter to the yeast mixture and give it a stir.
(gentle upbeat music) Next, whisk three cups of bread flour with one teaspoon of salt in the bowl of a stand mixer.
Salt can have a deactivating effect on yeast so make sure it's well-mixed in with the flour.
Using the paddle attachment, turn the mixer on low and slowly add the yeast mixture.
Once everything is combined, turn the mixer to medium high and beat until the dough comes together and is pulling away from the sides of the bowl.
So the dough is really soft after it finishes kneading.
Don't be tempted to add more flour to it.
You need to leave it as is because that's what's going to help us get those great nooks and crannies in the actual muffin.
Spray a bowl with cooking spray and scrape the muffin dough into the bowl.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put the dough aside to rise for about one to two hours.
So you definitely wanna wait until your dough has risen at least double in size and that is really gonna help your muffins be kind of fluffy and delicious and really make them more flavorful.
While we are waiting for the dough to rise, we can get the baking sheet ready by sprinkling some corn meal over our parchment lined baking sheet.
And I'm going to put that aside until I need it.
Now that the dough has risen, I'm gonna generously flour my work surface.
You can see the dough is really soft and without the flour it would be pretty tricky for me to form the muffins.
That is also the reason I like to use muffin rings to help them keep a nice round shape.
Speaking of muffin rings, if I had been totally on my game today I would've sprayed these with cooking spray and dusted the corn meal on when I prepared my baking sheet.
But that's okay.
We can do it now and only the two of us are the wiser.
It's definitely a messy process, but what's the point of using the muffin rings to make them nice and pretty if you can't get them out of the rings?
I like to use use a scale to measure out the dough but you can certainly be more of a free spirit and wing it.
Forming the dough is easy.
You just pull the dough down towards the center and give it a little pinch while smoothing and going all the way around the dough until you have a small, smooth, perfectly round ball of dough.
This recipe makes 12 English muffins, so one down, 11 to go.
Once you've formed all 12 muffins, dust the top of each one with a little more corn meal and gently pat each one of these babies down to fill the ring.
The corn meal helps not only with the stickiness of the dough, but also helps to keep the dough from spreading.
Cover loosely with plastic wrap to rise again.
Or if you're feeling really organized, you can form the muffins and put them in the refrigerator to bake off in the morning.
How cool would that be?
So our muffins have been resting for about 35, 40 minutes.
They've gotten a little bit puffier and larger in size which is exactly how we want them to be.
And the one thing I bet you don't know, if you haven't made these English muffins before, is we actually bake them on the griddle.
While heating up the pan, brush some vegetable oil on the griddle.
Direct heat gives English muffins a sort of oven spring as all the entrapped gases suddenly get warm and expand within the soft dough.
Using a spatula, lift the dough, with the ring, and place it onto the hot griddle.
Takes a little maneuvering to get it on the griddle, but have confidence.
Remember, you are in charge here, not the dough.
Let the muffins cook on the griddle for about five minutes on each side.
You want the griddle to be nice and hot, so keep an eye on the muffins because you don't want them to burn.
The corn meal helps to give the muffins a little buffer from the heat but they can still easily get too brown in a hurry.
See, I was so worried about not burning my muffins on the first side.
I forgot to remove the rings before flipping.
No worries.
We can still remove the ring by carefully sliding a knife around the inside edge of the ring and then giving the muffin a little nudge.
The ring gets really hot, so be careful.
I then like to continue baking the English muffins in a 350 degree preheated oven for another five minutes or so to finish them off.
This quick stint in the oven isn't gonna change the overall taste or texture of the muffin.
You will still get that super soft and moist inside which is the perfect vehicle for butter and jam.
So here, these beautiful babies are out of the oven.
I'm gonna break it open and you know that you're supposed to fork it open versus taking a knife to do that.
So we'll do it the official way here and break this muffin open.
All right, here we go.
Oh yeah, look at the inside of this, you guys.
It is beautiful.
Let me put a little butter now.
You know, if these had been cooled off for a little while longer and you wanted to toast them, hey, that's awesome too.
But because they're pretty fresh out of the oven I'm just going to put a little butter on without toasting and I'm gonna take some of this delicious cherry jam that I made, because why not?
Of course.
Just gonna put a little bit on, give it a taste.
These are the most delicious English muffins you are ever going to try.
You will never buy them from the store again.
I guarantee it.
So if you like what you saw give me a like and subscribe and I'll see you next time.
(gentle upbeat music)
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The Baking Journal is a local public television program presented by CET