BBA Challenge #12: English Muffins

Jeesh–I don’t even know how long ago I made these.  To the extent I ever have anything useful to say about a recipe or any noteworthy observations, I’m sure I’ve forgotten them by now.  On the other hand, it’s pretty cool to have made your own English muffins!

This was of course the next bread in the BBA Challenge.  I love English muffins, though often more in theory than when I actually buy them.  They are often so disappointing!  Slightly stale tasting even when just purchased, insubstantial…so how about the recipe?

In a way this is kind of like bagels–you do the first part of the baking on the stovetop, and then finish baking in the oven.  Except in this case rather than dropping the pieces of dough into a hot water bath, you bring out the pancake griddle!

The beginning is similar enough to any other bread dough we’ve seen so far:

 Then you make the muffins.  Surprisingly to me, you roll them into little balls for the second proof:

 And let them grow on a bed of cornmeal (this is starting to look familiar, isn’t it?)

 Then you put them on your hot griddle.  There’s a bit of timing according to Reinhart, you don’t want to flip to early or else they may deflate on you in the oven.  (See the little indentures?  Maybe I should have used a spatula rather than my hand to transfer these to the stove).

 I seemed to manage that OK, but apparently still have not mastered my griddle–the flame is very uneven and, just like when I make pancakes, the buns on one end burned before the other end even firmed up.  (I have since switched griddles to the lower-power flame and this works much better; however, this was in the month or two since I made these).

Burnt or otherwise, it was fun to see how they really were looking like English muffins!  More the jumbo size version than regular, certainly.

 You finish baking them in the oven, and let them cool.

And voila–nooks and crannies and butter!