This morning in a fit of enthusiasm, I decided to bake some English muffins to have with our breakfast of scrambled eggs and Sainsbury's basics smoked salmon trimmings. There is quite a bit of time for proving the dough but as long as you don't have a lie in, there's plenty of time to make them for a brunch.I sped the proving process up by leaving the dough in the top oven, above above the main oven which was heating up and as a result ended up eating these at 9.30am after starting them just after 8 am (whilst also making a loaf using a different recipe) but are definitely worth trying. This recipe makes 9 muffins (and uses one sachet of yeast). I halved the quantities as there were just the two of us. I ran out of bread flour and used about 25% plain flour and it worked fine.
Unfortunately we wolfed down most of them and I couldn't be bothered taking a pretty photo, so you'll have to do with possibly one of the worst photos I've ever taken.
Ingredients
450g bread flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
350ml warm milk
1 tsp caster sugar
15g fresh yeast or 1 sachet dried fast acting yeast
1 tbsp of melted butter or oil
Flour or semolina for dusting
Directions
- If using fast acting yeast, sift all the dry ingredients together in a bowl, otherwise mix the yeast with half the milk first. Add the remaining ingredients.
- Beat the mixture for 4-5 minutes (I used an electric hand whisk with sturdy beaters - a wooden spoon will do fine). You'll end up with a smooth elastic dough.
- Cover and leave to rise until doubled in size (upto an hour - I waited 30 mins)
- Once the dough has doubled in size, put on a floured board and knock back.
- Roll the dough out so it's 1cm thick. Using a round pastry cutter, cut out your muffins, dust with flour and leave them to rise for 20-30 mins
- Heat a heavy frying pan on a medium heat and pop the muffins in the frying pan - no oil needed, and cook for 7 mins on each side. You can judge if they're done by touching the top - they should be firm with a little give and should keep their shape.
