Sourdough English Muffins

• servings: 24 servings
• active time: 1 hour
• total time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients

200 g Sourdough Starter (fed and bubbly (reduce in warmer weather)

500 g Milk (cold is better for overnight ferment)

600 g Bread Flour

12 g Salt

20 g Honey (you can use sugar if you want to)

50 g Cornmeal (for dusting)

Directions

In a large glass bowl, mix together all of the ingredients, including your sourdough starter and bring it together to form a dough. The dough will be quite sticky. Gently knead the dough to bring it together.It's easy to do by hand in the bowl for less washing up, but if you prefer to do it in a stand mixer that's perfectly fine too.

Once you have a dough formed, cover it in plastic wrap and set aside for around 12 hours to ferment at room temperature (see notes). You want the dough to rise (it doesn't need to double though). It should rise at least half in the bowl and become a smoother, structured dough (see the pics above of my dough). It's important that the dough maintains its gluten structure in order to be shaped into rounds.Just like traditional sourdough bread, you'll need to watch the dough, rather than the clock.

Put the dough in the fridge until the next day.

Take the dough out of the fridge for 30 minutes. Then wet your hands and gently shape your dough into a rough ball by performing a set of stretch and folds. This will deflate the dough - but don't worry. Now leave the dough to rest for around 30 minutes.

Generously Dust your work surface with corn meal and then ease the dough out of the bowl. Sprinkle corn meal on the top of the dough too. Depending on how sticky your dough is, you might need to add some extra as you go along so keep it handy.

Gently press the dough into a rectangle using your hands. Using a rolling pin, gently roll your dough to around 1/4-1/2 inch thick. (I roll to 1/4” so they aren’t so thick when cooking) You don't want it too thick or your muffins will be doughy and take too long to cook in the middle. (Let the dough rest 10 minutes so it doesn’t shrink as much when cutting.). Using an English muffin ring (or glass or plastic tumbler) gently cut out rounds of your dough and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and dusted with corn meal. Keep going until you can't cut any more.Then gather up the dough, roll it back out and repeat until you've used all the dough up. This will take 2 pans. Cover the muffins with a tea towel and leave to rest for around 30-60 minutes.

Heat a fry pan or skillet on the stove top. You want a medium/low heat - you don't want to burn the outside and leave the inside raw, so just keep an eye on them and adjust as you need to. Sprinkle cornmeal in heated pans and Place 4 - 6 muffins in your skillet, cover with the lid and cook for around 6 minutes on each side. There is no need for oil or butter, the corn meal will protect them from sticking. Turn them over once you see the dough bubbling (they will be puffed up from the heat).Once they are golden on each side, take off the heat and allow to cool. Dump out the corn meal in the pan and replace with fresh cornmeal for the next batch. Repeat the process until all of the muffins are cooked. (If they seem too thick, you can flip them back over and cook an additional 2 minutes)

Once they are cool, use a fork to split them and enjoy them with butter or toast them for extra golden goodness!

Notes

I use discard that is mature from feeding the start (3-4 times over 2 days) on the day I make bread.

I use cold milk and mix the dough in the evening around 7 pm or later. Then I put the dough downstairs in the storage room to ferment all night. In the morning after it looks about doubled, I put the bucket in the fridge until the next day. I use all-clad pan and preheat stove on 4. Then after starting to cook reduce heat to about 2 so they don’t burn.

I find the flavor is much better after fermenting overnight and then putting the dough in the fridge until the next day.

I use 6 qt cambro bucket as 2 qt is a bit small-a 4 qt would be perfect.

Once you cut them out, you can put them in the fridge for up to 24 hours before cooking. Let them come back to room temperature before cooking them.

A few notes on the fermentation times:

It's ok to leave the mixture at room temperature, even though it has milk in it. The good bacteria in your sourdough starter will protect your dough.

If your house is very warm, leave it to ferment at room temp for half the time and then put it in the fridge to avoid it over fermenting. You could also reduce the amount of starter too.

The dough can be kept in the fridge for up to 3 days after the initial fermentation has occurred at room temp.

Nooks & Crannies

To make sure you get the nooks and crannies English Muffins are famous for, make sure you use a fork to split them rather than slicing them with a knife.

Nutrition

• Calories: 121 kcal
• Total Fat: 1 g
• Saturated Fat: 1 g
• Unsaturated Fat: 2 g
• Cholesterol: 2 mg
• Sodium: 203 mg
• Total Carbohydrate: 23 g
• Dietary Fiber: 1 g
• Total Sugars: 2 g
• Protein: 4 g