Model Bakery English Muffins - Baked Not Fried

I’ve been in a reflective sort of mood the last few days after a visit from someone I haven’t seen in some time.  Seeing this person stirred up a storm of emotion, good, bad, and everything in between.  I’ve been trying to move past some uncomfortable feelings about a situation in which I no longer have any control.  I’ve been desperately clinging to past hopes and dreams, while the universe is now the one leading the charge.   It’s unfair and unkind and many ways, but it just is and I have to find a way to be okay with it.

I wasn’t too excited about my first experience making English muffins; actually they weren’t at all what I hoped for.  With a little perseverance and quite a few more tries I did finally land on a version that makes me smile from the inside out.  I’ve been making a ritual out of baking these every few weeks now for the last few months, and one I don’t plan on changing any time soon.  The original recipe calls for frying the muffins in Ghee and after several experiments and lots of smoke alarms going off in my kitchen, I can now say baking them as I’ve instructed is my preferred method.  

Model Bakery’s English Muffins

Biga

1/4-cup water

1/2-cup (75 g) bread flour

3/4-teaspoon instant yeast

Dough

1 1/3 cups water

3/4-teaspoon instant yeast

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

3 1/2 cups (510 g) unbleached all-purpose flour

1/4 cup (35 g) yellow cornmeal, preferably stone ground

6 tablespoons melted clarified Butter (ghee)

1.  Make biga:  1 day before.  Combine water, flour and yeast in a small bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 12-24 hours.  I often forget to make the biga the night before, so if you desire to make the muffins same day, leave the prepared biga on the counter in a warm spot for 2-3 hours and proceed with the recipe as follows.

2.  Make dough:  combine biga, water, yeast, olive oil, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer.  Affix the bowl to stand and add dough hook attachment and mix on low speed until combined.  Or mix by hand.

3.  Mix in flour to make soft dough that barely cleans the mixer.  Knead on medium-low speed about 8 minutes. 

4.  Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit 2 hours. 

5.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, brush with a little clarified butter and sprinkle lightly with cornmeal. 

6.  Using a silicone spatula scrape the dough out of the bowl onto a lightly floured work surface.  Roll dough out with a rolling pin into a circle about 3/4-inch thick.  Cut the dough with a 4-inch round cutter and place 6 muffins per baking sheet.  Reroll scraps and cut as many as you can get.  Sprinkle cornmeal on the top of the rounds.  Loosely cover the pans with wrap.  Let stand until the rounds have increased by half, about 1 hour. 

7.  Preheat oven to 410 degrees F.  Drizzle the top of the muffins with a little of the clarified butter.  Place one sheet at a time on center rack and cook for 8 minutes, carefully flip the muffins, and drizzle with a little more clarified butter.  Cook 8 minutes longer.  Cook second tray the same way and let cool completely on cooling rack.
8.  To serve, slice muffins in half and lightly toast.  A good way to store the muffins is individually wrapped in plastic wrap and if you have more than you think you will eat in 2 days put the remainder in the freezer.

Makes 10-12 muffins depending on how thick you make them.  

As for me I'm enjoying this spring, its fickle nature, and some smiling faces I adore.  I'm also reminding myself, it's an evolution; not a revolution.

Enjoy,

Gina

The Dahlia Bakery English Muffins

Have you ever been stuck in the negative head space of "Does it really make a difference?"  I've been stuck there for a few weeks.  I think it boils down to the fact I'm the type of person who cares immensely about whatever it is I do.  Sometimes I don't even get it, is it a hill climbing thing?  Or is it something along the lines of I've already learned that, now let's move on kind of thing?  I'm never quite sure.

I've tried to never stop learning.  I'm convinced the mental decline kicks in pronto when you do, or at least in my case.  I have been going to night school for the last couple months to learn web design (feel free to quit laughing at any time).  I struggled through the beginning class and despite learning a few things; I didn't feel like I was any further along than when I started.  I decided when it was over to take an advanced class at a different school.  I don't know if I was just burned out from being so busy this last year or what, but I left half way through the first class and didn't return.

I felt like a total loser.  I gave myself the whole "It really doesn't make a difference anyways" speech.  It did make a difference though and I guess if I really do want to learn it, I just have to dust myself off and force myself to go back and try again.

I picked up The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook the other day and the first recipe that screamed "make me" was the English Muffins.  I really went through that whole "does it really make a difference thing" as I read through the four pages of directions (no four isn't a typo).  I thought after all there is a ton of recipes online already for simple English Muffins that are baked on a griddle.  After much debate and seeing them on Lottie and Doof I decided to give them a go.

Here is the English Muffins recipe I used. I did follow per directions, but I did have a few issues with them.  The dough was over hydrated in my opinion.  Next time I would scale back the water a bit until I got dough that I could handle a bit easier.  My dough was so sticky I had as much on my hands as I did on the rolls.  The wet dough makes shaping a real bear.  I did manage to get them to look sort of round.

Also the recipe calls for equal parts of all-purpose flour and equal parts cornmeal for dusting the pans.  I think next time I will use only cornmeal on the pans, I just don't love that baked flour taste on the outside of bread.  If you do, feel free to ignore me then.  I also dusted the tops of the muffins with the flour/cornmeal mixture or I knew the towels would end up sticking due to the moisture in these muffins.

They ended up having a nice developed flavor from all the rise time and a chewy texture, but most importantly they have the trademark nooks and crannies.  My husband ate three of them for breakfast this morning so I'm going to call them a success.

Maybe my success with these English Muffins will break the night school drop-out curse.  Cross your fingers for me, pretty please!

Gina