“Who doesn’t love English muffins? Homemade sourdough muffins seem even more scrumptious, and some of the taste-testers here had to admit that these crusty, chewy, tangy gems were some of the best they’d ever eaten. “
— King Arthur
I have been meaning to restart a sourdough starters for a couple of years now and thanks to quarantine, I immediately hopped to it. The second week of my sourdough, some strange things started happening, but by the end of the week it was smelling beautiful, rising, and getting very airy. I am so pleased with my starter now. Having to feed it every day means discarding a lot every week. I started looking to King Arthur for discard recipes and found this awesome recipe for English muffins. What an easy and awesome recipe.
Let’s bake!
So, I didn’t follow the recipe completely. I subbed out 200 grams of AP flour for Whole Wheat flour, and I didn’t have the milk powder so I added a quarter cup of 2% milk.
Since I was using my sourdough starter I wanted to make sure there was maximum sourdough flavor. So I let the dough chill in the fridge overnight. I let the dough come down to room temperature before rolling out. The recipe didn’t call for this and I may have over-proofed the dough by doing this. Stay tuned to find out when I make this recipe again.
The muffins rose as they should and were packed with so much flavor. I really enjoyed these over every store bought English muffin I’ve ever had. And I’m pretty sure these aren’t even baked right yet. So get to it – try making these yourself. You won’t regret it.
Happy bread baking!
Sourdough English Muffins
INGREDIENTS
- 2 tablespoons (25g) sugar
- 2 cups (454g) warm water (110°F-115°F)
- 1 tablespoon active dry yeast or instant yeast
- 1 cup (227g) sourdough starter, ripe (fed) or discard; ripe will give you a more vigorous rise
- 7 cups (843g) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
- 1/2 cup (43g) Baker’s Special Dry Milk or nonfat dry milk
- 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons, 57g) butter, at room temperature
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon sour salt (citric acid), optional; for enhanced sour flavor
- semolina or cornmeal, for coating
INSTRUCTIONS
- Combine all of the dough ingredients, except the cornmeal/semolina, in a large bowl.
- Mix and knead — by hand, electric mixer, or bread machine — to form a smooth dough. The dough should be soft and elastic, but not particularly sticky; add additional flour if necessary.
- Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and set it aside to rise for about 1 1/2 hours, or until it’s noticeably puffy. For most pronounced sour flavor, cover the bowl, and immediately place it in the refrigerator (without rising first). Let the dough chill for 24 hours; this will develop its flavor.
- Gently deflate the dough, turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface, cover it, and let it sit for a few minutes, to relax the gluten. Divide the dough in half. Working with one piece at a time, roll 1/2″ thick, and cut in 3″ rounds. Re-roll and cut any remaining scraps. Repeat with the remaining half of dough.
Let me know how the recipe turned out for you in the comments below!
Trial & Eggs 