English Muffins in Words and Pictures

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This is adapted from a recipe in Olney on Bread, by Judith Olney, a very good bread book from the 1980s.

The recipe makes very good English muffins when scaled at 3-4 ounces / 80-110 grams. The dough is only moderately sticky and handles very well. I have modified the original recipe to use a poolish and an autolyse. You can use a biga if you would prefer to, or make the recipe straight. The liquid in the original recipe is 1 2/3 cups / 380 gms milk and 1/3 cup / 75 gms water for the yeast. I use 10 ounces / 285 gms water for the poolish and the rest milk, 3 3/8 ounces / 95 gms. It's still 380 grams, but the composition is different. I'm just a little hesitant to leave milk at room temperature for too long. The poolish here had 1/2 teaspoon / 2 grams yeast and sat on the counter for 6 hours.

There are several variations of the basic English muffin recipe you can try. I've tried them each once or twice, and they work, but your taste will determine the proportions to use.
I've folded in some raisins and some sugar-cinnamon mix at the last fold. This works well, but the sugar cinnamon shouldn't be mixed in too finely, let it be streaks.
I've used maple syrup (I use Grade B, it's tastier) in place of a bit of the milk and some of the sugar. This is a judgement call on what you like.
Use buttermilk for some of the milk. I've tried up to 8 ounces / 225 ml and it works well.
This English muffin recipe is very forgiving and works well with just about any combination of add-ins.
The recipe also responds well to using whole wheat for some of the flour, up to 5 ounces / 140 grams.

Total Ingredients

Ingred	Ounces	Grams
HK Flour	29	825
Milk	1 2/3 cup	380	See discussion above about substitution.
Dry Yeast	1/4	7
Egg	1	1
Vinegar	1 Tbsp	15 ml
Sugar	1 heap Tbsp	25
Warm Water	1/3 cup	75
Butter	2 1/2 Tbsp	35
Salt	2 tsp	14
Malt	1 Tbsp	15 ml	See malt discussion here.

Poolish

Ingred	Ounces	Grams
HK Flour	10	285
Water	10	285
Dry Yeast	1/2 tsp	2

Ingredients to Add to Poolish

Ingred	Ounces	Grams
HK Flour	19	540
Milk	3 3/8	95
Dry Yeast	1 1/2 tsp	4
Egg	1	1
Vinegar	1 Tbsp	15 ml
Sugar	1 heap Tbsp	25
Warm Water	1/3 cup	75
Butter	2 1/2 Tbsp	35
Salt	2 tsp	14
Malt Extract	1 Tbsp	15 ml	See malt discussion here	Use diastatic malt if possible. If you don't have diastatic malt, use regular malt. If you don't have either malt, just use sugar.

Malt extract is optional
Cornmeal for shaping
One or two large griddles

Method

1. Mix all the ingredients except the salt in a mixer for a minute or two. Then let rest for 20 minutes.
2. Add salt and mix for 5 minutes. The dough will be alive and just slightly sticky.
3. Set to ferment in the mixer bowl for 40 minutes. Then do a drop-hook or on the counter fold.
4. Set the dough to ferment again for 30 minutes. Do another fold.
5. Set the dough to ferment for 20 minutes. Remove from the bowl and place on the counter.
6. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes, then divide into 3 1/2 ounce / 110 gram pieces.
7. The trick to making English muffins is to avoid overworking the dough. The less you work the dough, the flatter the finished English muffins will be.
8. If you take the dough as it's cut from the main dough and just pull it into shape, you'll have a flatter English muffin.
9. However, if you like higher English muffins, with loft between a regular English muffin and a round loaf, then round the dough and flatten it with your hand.
10. Round the doughs into balls and let them rest for 5 minutes.
11. Take each dough and gently pull it around the edge and in the center as if you were pulling the dough to start a pizza. They should wind up about 4 inches / 10 cm in diameter for this weight.
12. Place cornmeal in a bowl and press the doughs flatter in the corn meal, turning once or twice to assure that you have cornmeal on both sides.
13. The flatter you can get the doughs the better, within reason. They will puff up when you cook them, but if you start too round, they will be thick and may not cook on the inside.
14. You may either let the muffins rise for 20 minutes or cook at once.
15. Now here's a trick for cooking. I find that the muffins work best when I start the batch from a cold griddle. If I start them from a hot griddle, the outside gets too brown before the inside is cooked. I use a thin griddle and cool it under water between each batch.
16. So, start the griddle cold, place as many muffins as will fit on the griddle and turn on the heat to something between low and medium. Cook, shifting the muffins and turning them over frequently, until the muffins are done to your liking. The longer you can cook them without burning, the better they will be.
17. Do each batch in succession, cooling the griddle between batches.
18. Allow the muffins to cool before splitting and heating. These freeze very well; put two or three in each plastic bag and freeze.

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