homemade english muffins

I LOVE an English muffin. It's basically the perfect breakfast dish- slightly sweet and toasty with a pat of salty butter, it's exactly what I want to eat for breakfast. These are kind of like mini English muffins, but because there are homemade, you can make them whatever size you want! They take some time to prepare, but for pennies on the dollar, you can have dozens of English muffins, rather than $3.00 for a dozen. Totally worth it!

Warmed water and yeast to start the blooming.

Warmed milk and sugar so that the sugars dissolve.

Melted shortening for a little fat and binder.

Alrighty, so first you need to pour in the yeast and water and stir this up. Remember, this is only 3 cups of flour. The rest comes later.

Next, time for the sweetened milk. Stir this together.

So finally, we add the melted shortening. Stir, stir, stir.

Add in the salt, and additional cup of flour, and mix with a bread hook on the mixer or a paddle on your stand mixer.

This is what you are looking for. It only took me an additional cup of flour from the first 3 to get to this point. It make take you more. I'd only add about a cup at a time though, to be sure.

Remove from the bowl and start to knead. You shouldn't need any additional flour to keep it from sticking to the surface or your hands because of the lard.

Three minutes of kneading should end up with a dough that looks like this. Roll it into a ball and then place it into a greased bowl.

Cover with a tea towel and let rise for about an hour- it should double in size.

Alright, time for some more work.

This is the fun part- punch down the dough with your fist (yes, that's my fist) and turn it out onto a working surface.

Roll the dough out to about a quarter of an inch in thickness.

Cut out the muffins using a cutter or a drinking glass, or even a wine glass which is what I used. After you've cut a bunch out, place them onto a pan that's been dusted with corn meal. Roll the dough out again and keep cutting out muffins until all the dough is gone. I ended up with 34 muffins!

Dust the tops with more corn meal, cover with another tea towel and let rise for 30 minutes.

Once risen, it's time to start cooking. English muffins aren't baked in the oven, in fact, they are cooked on the stove top. Weird.

In a greased skillet over low heat, place English muffins and cook for about 10 minutes.

Flip and repeat with the other side. Then, remove them from heat.

Yes. Repeat with the rest of the dough and that's it! They should be cooked all the way through. And they will be perfect toasted, with butter or jam. Or, whatever you want!

Homemade English Muffins
Got this from All Recipes!
1 cup milk
2 Tablespoons white sugar
1 packet active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup melted shortening
4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt

Warm milk in a small saucepan until slightly bubbly. Add in sugar and stir to dissolve. Remove from heat and let cool to lukewarm. In a small bowl or measuring cup, combine warm water and yeast to bloom for about 10 minutes. In a large bowl, combine together milk, yeast mixture, 3 cups of flour and shortening and beat until smooth. Add in salt and additional cup of flour or enough flour to create a soft dough. Remove from bowl and knead on a surface until smooth, about 3 minutes. Form into a ball and place in a greased bowl to rise under a tea towel for an hour. Punch down and remove from bowl and roll out with a rolling pin to a quarter inch thickness. Cut into rounds with a cutter or drinking glass. Place rounds onto a baking sheet that's dusted with corn meal. Keep cutting rounds until all dough is gone. Dust tops of rounds with corn meal, cover with a tea towel and let rise for 30 minutes. Preheat a saute pan over low heat. Grease pan and place rounds onto pan. Cook for 10 minutes on either side. Remove from heat and let cool. Repeat with all rounds. Enjoy!