Thursday, November 24, 2011

Sourdough English Muffins

Sourdough English Muffin

I can think of nothing more inviting on a cold fall morning than warm and buttery Sourdough English Muffins.  Making these delicious treats has been somewhat of an exercise in patience and I am delighted that I finally turned this corner on the recipe.

In a previous post I discussed how to build a sourdough starter and I am happy to report that my starter is alive and thriving.  Sourdough starter is much like kids.. if you keep feeding them they will stay around.

This particular recipe takes a while to create and there may be more time efficient recipes out there but since I generally rise before 6 in the morning I have plenty of time to deliver the goods.

Difficulty is moderate and you will start the night before and need to have 1 1/2 hours of time in the morning before serving.


Ingredients

1/2 cup Levian ( sourdough starter )
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp dry yeast 
1 cup whole milk
2 tsp honey

Instructions

Mix 1/2 cup of sourdough starter with 1 cup of flour, 1 tsp of salt, 1/2 cup whole milk, 1 tsp honey.  Place this in a bowl and cover with a moist towel or put a top on it that can leak the sourdough gasses. 

In the morning combine with remaining ingredients  1 cup flour,  1 tsp yeast, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 cup whole milk, 1 tsp honey.  Kneed by hand adding enough flour to get the dough to the point where it isn't sticking to your hands.  As dough goes this is very soft.  Form into a large ball and place in bowl in a warm place for an hour.  This dough should rise at least double its current size.

Dough ready to cut
After allowing dough to rise for an hour, pull it out into a long cylinder.  Cut into eight even chunks.  Form each chunk of dough into a flat round muffin. Once formed place the unbaked muffin onto cornmeal. Allow the muffins to sit for 1/2 an hour.

unbaked english muffins on cornmeal
Warm a griddle up to a just a bit lower than a medium heat.  Once  warm sprinkle corn meal onto the griddle.  Carefully transfer the muffins to the griddle by hand.  


Muffins cooking on griddle
After 4-5 minutes flip the muffins carefully. The objective is to keep the dough from falling. Continue flipping every 4-5 minutes until you cannot feel doughiness in the sides of the muffins.

That's it!  Use a fork to split the muffins and pop them into the toaster.


No comments:

Post a Comment