Sunday, April 13, 2008

English muffins with egg and vinegar


These are really good English muffins. Here is the recipe. It came from Ruth Reichi, with cooking technique from Alton Brown:

Mix
1/3 cup warm water
1 Tbs sugar
1 package active dry yeast
in the bowl of the mixer.

Warm 1 2/3 cup milk and
3 Tbs butter till melted
Cool, then add 1 egg
and 1 Tbs vinegar
and add it all to the yeast.

Stir in 2 1/2 cups (340 grams) of flour and mix for 5 minutes.
Add another 2 1/2 cups (340 grams more) flour and mix with the hook for 5 more minutes.
Let rise for 1 hour. The dough tripled in one hour. After the rise, I put it in the refrigerator for another hour to make it easier to handle.

Preheat the griddle to 300 deg F. [I put water on mine as it heats so I can tell when the corners are hot.]
Scale the dough into about sixteen 80 gram pieces. Coat liberally with corn meal. I used my wooden dough bowl with corn meal in it to coat the dough. Works nice.

Place rings on the hot griddle and spray lightly with cooking spray. Place a piece of dough in each ring, then place a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan on top of the rings. This forces the dough to stay in the ring. Cook for 5 minutes, then slip the rings off and turn the muffins to cook the other side for 5 more minutes. You don't need the cookie sheet for the second side. They should be golden brown on both sides. Cool completely on a cooling rack. Split with a fork.


Wife and I split one, coated it with olive oil, kosher salt, Italian spices and Parmesan cheese, then broiled it for an appetizer. Good.

These were too thick and were scaled to 125 grams. I note in the recipe to use 80 grams. They will be thinner and more like commercial muffins.

The last time I made these, I made them in the evening, let the dough rise, then put it in the refrigerator overnight. I baked them in the morning for my son and his family. Worked like a charm. Do let them cool, though. That is the finish of the cooking.