English Muffins

I'm not sure why it took me so long into my bread making bonanza to give English Muffins a try. We both love them and the FD, especially, loves having egg sandwiches for breakfast. I have had this recipe bookmarked for ages but finally got around to making it a few weeks ago. However, although the recipe says to cut them in 3'' circles, I found that the dough was elasticky, causing them to shrink down after being cut so we were left with about 50 mini English muffins. They still tasted good but you had to eat like three to get the effect of one and they didn't work so well for egg sandwiches. We still ate them, of course, and once they were gone, I decided to give it a try and learn from the past.

English Muffins - adapted from America's Best Breadmachine Baking Recipes
1 C milk
2 eggs
just under 1 tsp salt
2 T sugar
2 T oil
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/4 cups unbleached white flour (or bread flour)
1 1/4 tsp yeast
Cornmeal for topping

1. Place all ingredients, EXCEPT CORNMEAL, in the breadpan in the order suggested by your manufacturer. Select dough cycle. When dough is complete, turn out onto a floured surface, knead gently and cover for 10-15 minutes.

2. Roll dough out to 1/4 inch thickness. Make sure it is thin enough or else your English muffins may not cook through before burning.

3. Cut dough into 4 inch circles (again the recipe says 3 inch but when I used a smaller circle, I found they bounced down and became VERY tiny).

4. Place English muffins on a baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal. Sprinkle cornmeal over tops as well. I need to practice this because I did a terrible job getting the cornmeal to spread evenly.

5. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 30-45 minutes. This is what the recipe says although I had to let them rise for more than an hour, in a warm oven in order to get them to do anything. Next time, I think I'm going to experiment with adding a bit more yeast.

6. Heat an electric griddle to 350-400 (the recipe says 500 but mine only goes to 400 and even at this heat, they started to burn). Place English muffins on griddle and cook for 5-6 minutes on each side, until browned. Flip and continue cooking for another 5-6 minutes. English muffins are done when they are browned on either side.

Makes 24 English Muffins.

This recipe is being linked at Tempt My Tummy Tuesday and Tasty Tuesday.