English Muffins - From Scratch!

A long time ago I made English muffins from scratch. It was such fun that I even bought rings to shape the muffins! I haven't revisited the idea in years, but decided to do it again recently.



The recipe requires both a griddle and an oven. Here's what you do (and you don't have to have English muffin rings to do this successfully):

• 1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup lukewarm water
• 1/2 tsp honey
• 1 cup lukewarm milk
• 2 T olive oil or cooled melted unsalted butter (I use olive oil)
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 - 1 2/3 cups unbleached white flour
• 1 3/4 tsp salt

Dissolve the yeast in warm water in a large bowl. Stir in the honey. Let it work for 5 - 10 minutes.
Stir in the warm milk and the olive oil
Mix together 1 1/2 cups of the white flour, the whole wheat flour and the salt in a medium bowl.
Add this to the yeast mixture, using the paddle attachment of the mixer
Change to a dough hook and knead (or knead in the bowl or on the counter) for 10 minutes. Add more white flour as needed.
Cover the bowl with a wet towel or plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise until doubled (about 1 1/2 hours).

Dust a work surface with flour. Divide the dough into 10 parts and move them to the work surface. Sprinkle each part with flour and shape into a 4 inch round or square. Dust with flour.

Cover and let rise for 35 to 45 minutes (until doubled).

Warm a griddle over low heat for 10 minutes until a drop of water sizzles. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 325.

Slide a spatula under one muffine and transfer it to the griddle. Cook for 5 minutes on one side.
Turn and cook for 5 minutes on the other side.
Turn AGAIN and cook for another 5 minutes and turn AGAIN and cook another 5 minutes.

Remove from the griddle and place on an unoiled baking sheet. Bake for 5 minutes or until brown on both top and bottom. Cook one or more muffins at a time, depending on the griddle size, until you have baked all the dough.

Cool the muffins on a rack. Split in half and toast. Serve with butter and jam or honey.



Postscript: This was a long, painful process. My griddle holds 8 muffins, but still it took about 30 minutes for the first 8 and an additional 30 minutes for the last two. I found the turning every 5 minutes on the griddle to test my cooking patience! I don't regret making them because we all loved them, but it will be a long time before I visit this recipe again!

Maple Oatmeal Bread - Part Two

Continuing the recipe:

1. Turn the bread out of the rising bowl and cut it into two pieces. A bench knife does a great job for this. You can make two round loaves or put the dough into two greased loaf pans (this is what I did).
   
2. Allow the bread to rise for about 45 more minutes. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 375.

• Bake at 375 for about 35 - 40 minutes.
  

The loaves turned out really pretty and smelled so good (wish I could convey that on a blog!)



I love this Hensperger cookbook. My copy is literally falling apart at the seams as you can see below, but I continue to use it over and over.



I made homemade pimento cheese and had a pimento cheese sandwich for supper on this delicious bread.



If you are interested, I use my mother's method to make pimento cheese -

• You grate a lot of cheese (this was about 3/4 pound). I used my food processor with the grating wheel to grate the cheese. I use good cheese: Cabot sharp cheddar which was on sale this week at Whole Foods
  
• I bought a jar of roasted peppers and chopped them into smaller pieces - you can see the jar in the back left of the picture.
• I poured the cut pimentos and the juice from their jar into the cheese.
• Then I grind pepper over the mix until it looks right (probably about 1/8 tsp).
• I shake a little salt,
• Worcestershire sauce - about 1/4 tsp, if that
  
• a few drops of Tabasco,
• a pinch of sugar and
• just enough mayonnaise to make it spreadable....
  

And there it is - done and delicious.

Maple Oatmeal Bread - Part One

Today I made Maple Oatmeal Bread from one of my favorite cookbooks by Beth Hensperger: Baking Bread: Old and New Traditions.

One of the keys to good bread is good ingredients. I used the ingredients above in this recipe. If you shop at Whole Foods, you'll recognize the brands and that most are organic.

The whole wheat flour in the upper right is some flour that I ground myself at a shop in Charleston, SC. It was so much fun - they had the wheat and I put it in the flour grinder and turned it into flour! I felt like the Little Red Hen!


I didn't have the wheat bran called for in the original recipe so I substituted ground flax seed. Here's what is in this bread:

• 2 T active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 1 cup warm milk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup wheat bran (I used ground flax seed instead)
• 1/2 cup oat bran
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 4 1/2 - 5 cups unbleached bread flour

1. First you proof the yeast in 1/2 cup of the warm water mixed with 1 tsp of the maple syrup.
2. Then in the work bowl of the mixer, combine the rest of the water, the maple syrup, milk, oil, salt, brans, whole wheat flour, oats and 1 cup bread flour.
   
3. Add the yeast. Beat for about a minute.
   
4. Then add the remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time. The dough should still be moist when you are through so that the brans and the oatmeal can continue to absorb moisture as the dough rises.
5. Knead the bread and then put it in a greased bowl to rise for about 1 1/2 - 2 hours. (Continued in next post)