English Muffins (Sourdough)

I've made English muffins before, but it doesn't look like I ended up doing a write-up for them. I probably didn't think they needed their own write-up since I just used dough from another bread recipe to make them. But I kind of wish I'd written out the instructions now. Maybe I'll try doing them that way again one day and try to actually document the process.

This batch of English muffins worked a little differently. It doesn't piggy-back on another bread recipe. It's a dedicated English muffin recipe from the King Arthur Flour website. I went with this one because it was a convenient way to use up some more sourdough discard. (It can also be made with ripe sourdough starter, but I wanted to do it with discard.)

I followed the recipe pretty closely for this round and rolled with the white flour it called for. I did end up having to add a little extra water, but it seemed to work well otherwise. Although I think I probably should've kneaded the dough for a good bit longer than I did. (I kneaded it for ~20 minutes, and I think it probably needed at least 30 or 40.)

I'd like to try making this with whole wheat flour next time, but I think I might have to scale back the amount of flour (and/or increase the amount of water) for that since the bran will make it a bit thirstier than it would otherwise be.

English Muffins

Slightly adapted from King Arthur Baking

Ingredients

• 830g all-purpose flour
• 55g skim milk powder
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 Tbsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 Tbsp. instant (rapid-rise) yeast
• 455g water
• 227g sourdough discard (100% hydration)
• 4 Tbsp. unsalted butter
• cornmeal, for dusting

Directions

1. Combine flour, milk powder, sugar, salt, and yeast and make a well in the centre.
2. Pour in water and sourdough discard.
3. Mix dry ingredients into wet, working from centre outward.
4. Once flour has been mostly incorporated, turn dough out onto work surface and knead for ~10 minutes, working more water in as needed.
5. Smear half the butter on the work surface and knead the dough on top of it to incorporate the butter.
6. Repeat with the remaining half of the butter.
7. Knead for at least another 10 minutes, working additional water in as needed to form a nice, supple dough.
8. Cover and let rise for 1-3 hours.
9. Knock back when ready and divide dough into two equal portions.
10. Round each portion, cover, and let rest for 10-20 minutes.
11. Working with one portion at a time, roll out to a thickness of 1-1.5cm.
12. Use a 7 or 8cm biscuit cutter to cut out circles and dust both sides with cornmeal.
13. Repeat with second portion of dough.
14. Combine scraps, roll out and cut and dust as above.
15. Repeat until all dough has been used.
16. Cover muffins and set aside to rise for ~60 minutes.
17. Heat a cast iron griddle/tawa over low to medium-low heat.
18. Cook the muffins on the ungreased griddle: 5 minutes, then place a cake tin or other not-too-heavy, flat object on top and cook for another 5 minutes; flip and cook for 5 minutes on the second side.
19. Place on a wire rack to cool.
20. Split, toast, and enjoy!