English Muffins

I love English muffins. Sometime a couple years ago it dawned on me that maybe I could make these myself - instead of buying bag after bag at the store. I found a recipe from Alton Brown of the Food Network, printed it off, and was immediately stuck. I needed rings to cook these in! Somewhere in the past few years I managed to track down a couple 3" rings in various cooking stores, but I never made the muffins.

Last week, after many more months of looking at that recipe and pining for English muffins, I finally pulled out the rings and the ingredients and made these. They were amazing and so much better than store-bought!



English Muffins

1/2 cup non-fat powdered milk
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon shortening
1 cut hot water
1 envelope dry yeast
1/8 teaspoon honey
1/3 cup warm water
2 cups flour, sifted (all-purpose is called for, but I used whole wheat pastry flour)
non-stick vegetable spray

In a bowl, combine the powdered milk, 1 tablespoon of honey, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, shortening, and hot water. Stir until the honey and salt are dissolved. Let cool. In a separate bowl combine the yeast and 1/8 teaspoon of honey in 1/3 cup of warm water and rest until yeast has dissolved. Add this to the dry milk mixture. Add the sifted flour and beat thoroughly with wooden spoon. Cover the bowl and let it rest in a warm spot for 30 minutes.

Preheat an electric griddle to 300 degrees F. (Note: I don't have an electric griddle so I used a frying pan on a very low temp. I kept an eye on things, adjusted the time and temp, and they turned out okay.)

Add the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of salt to mixture and beat thoroughly. Place 3-inch metal rings onto the griddle and coat lightly with vegetable spray. Using a normal size ice-cream scoop, place a scoop into each ring and cover with a pot lid or cookie sheet. Cook for 5 to 6 minutes. Remove the lid and flip rings using tongs or spatula. Cover with the lid and cook for another 5 to 6 minutes or until golden brown. Place on a cooling rack, remove rings, and cool. Split with fork and serve.

(Note: if you have trouble finding a 3" ring in a cooking store, you can use a tuna can with the tops and bottoms removed.)