Week 10 - English Muffins

 English Muffins

Recipe 10 - 52 in 2022

Bread #2

    Bread recipe #2 is "English Muffins" comes from the same 1941 (fourteenth printing) of The Household Searchlight Recipe Book that Recipe #9 "Chicken Salad" came from.  So, yeah, I had fun making these, but they didn't turn out like I'd hoped. I thought there'd been too much flour in the first attempt and the batter/dough wouldn't drop like the directions, so I made a second attempt and used one cup less flour. It was obviously a thinner batter and I let that batter set for longer to "get lighter", which I guess meant for it to rise a bit. While that second attempt was "getting lighter", I did make one last muffin with the first batch of batter/dough and that muffin came out much thicker and looked more like a store bought English muffin.  The texture of the muffins with the original batter/dough, were more like the store bought English muffin texture, with the nooks and crannies. The texture of muffins from the second attempt, did not have the nooks and crannies.

    In the recipe's directions, you are supposed to soften the yeast in the milk and I didn't know how long to do that for. The first attempt, I didn't let it soak for long and the second attempt I soaked the yeast for like 20-30 minutes (guesstimate) 

    The taste on both batches of English muffins was fine, but again, they also turned out mostly flat, looking more like pancakes. Even though these didn't turn out like I wanted, they'd be great to serve with a thick stew or curry. Would I want to try making these again? Kind of/ sort of. I want English muffins, but I think it would/will take several attempts to 'perfect'. 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups milk, scaled and cooled

1 tablespoon sugar

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cake compressed yeast or 1/2 cake dry yeast (I had to figure out an equivalent for a 'cake' of yeast; that answer is 1/2 of a packet of dry yeast (I used 1/2 a packet of Fleischmann's dry yeast)

1 egg, well beaten

1/8 teaspoon baking soda 

Directions:

Soften yeast in the cooled milk and add the sugar and salt. Add flour and mix thoroughly. (The original directions say to "Add sufficient flour to make a drop batter.", but the directions also calls for three cups of flour. I chose to use the full three cups flour in the first attempt and just two cups flour in the second attempt.) Set in a warm place and "allow to become light" (which I took to mean let the batter/dough rise). Add egg and baking soda. Mix thoroughly and drop on to hot griddle (If you have muffin rings, drop batter/dough into the ring, to help with making that round shape). Cook slowly on one side, then turn and cook the other side. 

Split muffin from the first attempt

Split muffin from the first attempt, served with homemade cherry preserves

Sad muffin from the second attempt

Muffins from the second attempt

Split muffin from the second attempt