You can buy English muffins but homemade, they make for a perfect weekend baking project.
Course
Breakfast
Cuisine
English
Prep Time1day
Cook Time15minutes
Total Time1day15minutes
Servings9
AuthorLemons & Anchovies
Ingredients
1/2cupsourdough starter
1cupmilk
2cupsspelt flouror whole wheat flour
1tablespoonhoneyliquid form
3/4teaspoonkosher salt
1 1/2teaspoonsbaking soda
cornmealfor dusting
Instructions
Stir together the starter and milk in a bowl large enough to accommodate all the ingredients. Add the flour and stir until smooth. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit for 8 hours or overnight.
After 8 hours or the following morning, stir in the honey, salt and baking soda. You will find the mixture sticky and loose and this is okay. Transfer the mixture on a well-floured surface and knead it for a couple of minutes. Sprinkle more flour as necessary to keep the dough from being too sticky to work with but don't add too much as you want it to stay loose. I added an additional 1/4 - 1/3 cup while I kneaded the mixture. (Note: A dough scraper helped, too.)
Dust the surface and the dough with more flour as you flatten the dough with your fingers to roughly 3/4 inch thick.
Sprinkle corn meal on a baking sheet. Dust your cutter (mine was about 2 to 2 1/2 inches) before cutting the dough into rounds. This will prevent some sticking. I found that using a thin, flat spatula to scoop the rounds from underneath the cutter then transferring them to the baking sheet made it easier to work with the sticky dough. Using the dough scraps and re-shaping them for more rounds yielded 9 muffins for me. (I may have pressed my dough a little thinner than 3/4 inch.) Dust the tops with a little more cornmeal, cover the rounds with plastic wrap and let rise for 45 minutes.
When you're ready to cook them, preheat your oven to 325℉. Heat a cast iron skillet (or nonstick skillet) over medium heat. Transfer the rounds to the heated skillet and cook until golden brown on both sides, 2-4 minutes per side. If the muffins brown too quickly, adjust the heat. Return the browned muffins to the baking sheet as you finish cooking them then bake the muffins until they are cooked through, about 15 minutes. Let the muffins cool completely on a wire rack before splitting and toasting them.
Recipe Notes
Original recipe from Kitchen Simplicity with adjustments for using spelt flour.