Homemade English Muffins

For the 4th edition of my homemade series, I decided to try out a recipe that kept popping up on Pinterest: Homemade English Muffins....I don't know about you, but I love Pinterest; I use it for recipe ideas all the time (if you haven't checked the site out yet, I highly recommend it). I found this recipe for Homemade English Muffins and figured it would fit perfectly with this series.

Ingredients

1 tsp active dry yeast

1 Tbsp sugar

1/2 cup milk

2 Tbsp butter

3 cups flour, divided

3/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup cornmeal

non-stick spray as needed

Directions

1. In a small bowl, combine the yeast, sugar and 1/2 cup warm water. Stir to dissolve the sugar and yeast. Let sit for 5 minutes or until foamy on top.

Yeast and sugar after getting foamy

2. While the yeast/sugar mixture is resting, combine 1 1/2 cups flour and the salt in a large bowl. Stir well to evenly distribute the salt. In a second small bowl, combine the milk and butter. Microwave the milk/butter for for 30 seconds at a time, stirring until the butter melts into the milk.

3. Pour the yeast mixture and the milk mixture into the flour. Stir until it has combined into a pasty mix. Now take the remaining flour (you should have 1 1/2 cups left) and add 1/4 cup at a time. You may not use all of the remaining flour. Stir in 1/4 cup at a tie until the dough forms a soft, slightly sticky ball that pulls away from the bowl. (I probably used about 1 cup of flour here)

4. Sprinkle a little flour onto a clean countertop and coat your hands in flour. Dump the soft ball of dough out of the bowl and knead it for 5 minutes (if you don't know how to knead dough like I didn't, check out this link). Don't be too liberal with the flour in this step; adding too much will result in tough muffins.

5. Shape the dough into a ball and place it in a bowl that has been coated in non-stick spray. Lightly spray the top of the dough and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise until double in size (about 45 min - 1 hour)

The dough covered to let rise

6. Punch the dough down, shape it into another ball, cover the bowl/dough and let rise a second time (45 min - 1 hour or until double in size)

7. Punch down the dough again and turn it out onto a well floured countertop. Using a rolling pin, lightly roll the dough until it is about 3/4 inch thick. Use a round cookie cutter, biscuit cutter, or round drinking glass to cut the dough into circles. When you can't cut out anymore circles, gently ball the remaining dough, roll again, and cut more.

8. Place the cut dough circles onto a sheet pan that has been liberally covered in cornmeal. Sprinkle more cornmeal on top of the muffins. Cover loosely with a damp towel and let rise, once more, until double in size (about another 45 min).

The cut out muffins on a cookie sheet before rising

9. Heat a large skillet over medium-low heat. Spray the pan with non-stick spray. Carefully transfer the fluffy, risen muffins to the hot skillet with a spatula. Cook the muffins in batches in the skillet until they are golden brown and crispy on each side. Make sure to keep the heat low so that the outside browns slowly, allowing time for the inside to bake. It took about 5-7 minutes for each side with mine.

One side is cooked, cooking the other

10. Let the muffins cool on a wire rack before slicing.

Emily's Thoughts

Overall I thought this was a fun recipe to try (who knew you baked English muffins without the oven?!). It's not very hard, but it does take a decent time commitment--not for the physical baking, but for waiting for the dough to rise. If you want to try making something homemade that your normally never would, this is a good recipe to try. And the muffins taste good. 


Credit for this recipe goes to the Budget Bytes blog.

Lemon Poppy Seed Bread

Aside from banana bread, lemon poppyseed bread is one of my favorite "dessert-like" breads. It's moist and delicious. And it's really easy, so give it a try. You can make it in muffin form or in bread form.

Ingredients

1 box lemon cake mix

Vanilla instant pudding mix

1 cup hot water

4 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup poppy seeds

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients. (you may want to mix in the hot water before adding the eggs to avoid cooking the eggs)

2. Mix for 2 minutes on medium speed.

3. Pour into greased loaf or muffin pan. Do not fill to the top, only about 2/3 of the way full, you want to make room for the bread to rise (see the picture below).

4. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Muffins fresh out of the oven

 

A loaf version of the bread. The mix makes enough for 4 mini loaf pans.

Thanks to my mom for sharing this recipe with me.

Banana Bread

This recipe has been a favorite in my family for as long as I can remember. Nothing tastes as good as some fresh banana bread on a Saturday or Sunday morning. Personally, I like this plain, but you can add butter to it or even cream cheese for some additional flavor.

Ingredients
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
4 Tbsp. sour cream
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup mashed bananas (about 2 medium, extremely ripe, bananas)

Directions
1. Grease 9 x 5 in. loaf pan or muffin pan (you can make muffins too) and heat oven to 350
2.  Beat together butter and sugar
3. Add eggs; mix well
4. Add sour cream, flour, baking soda, vanilla, and bananas. Mix well. 
5. Pour into prepared loaf pan or muffin cups
6. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes (in loaf pan) or 25 minutes (in muffin pan) or until toothpick comes out clean

Emily's Thoughts

The perfect bananas for this recipe

If you like chocolate chips in your banana bread, you can also add 1 cup of chocolate chips to the mix before baking. Also, a tip on the bananas, you can use fresh mashed up bananas, but personally I prefer to use bananas that have gotten too ripe for me to eat. If a couple bananas start to look bad, I usually let them ripen until they're almost completely black. That's when they're perfect for this recipe. If you don't feel like making banana bread when your bananas are ripened, toss them in the freezer and pull them out (be sure to thaw them before baking) when you're ready.

Muffins instead of bread also are delicious

On the cooking time, it varies on the size of pan you use. The bigger the loaf pan, the longer you'll need. Last night I used mini loaf pans, so the bread only needed 30 minutes. And the muffins I made only needed 25 minutes. Set the timer for 25 minutes to start with and then check back. If the bread doesn't look done yet, give it a little more time.

Thanks to my mom for passing this recipe on to me!

Yogurt Pancakes

Personally, I love Chobani Greek Yogurt, so when I saw this on the side of the yogurt container, I decided that I had to try it.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups (12 oz) Vanilla O% Chobani Greek Yogurt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
3/4 cup milk

Directions
1. Combine dry ingredients
2. Whisk wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Pour into dry mixture, and stir just until combined.
3. Over medium-high heat scoop 1/4 cup batter onto skillet per pancake. Flip when bubbles appear. Cook until golden brown. 

Serve with fruit and whipped cream or syrup. 

Emily's Thoughts
I thought these were delicious and so did my friend who normally isn't a huge fan of pancakes. They're much denser than normal pancakes, so you don't need as many to fill you up. And because they're made with yogurt, they stick with you longer. I went for a run about an hour after eating these and still wasn't hungry afterwards...not typical if I had made regular pancakes. This recipe could easily serve 3-4 people, so if you're cooking for 1-2 people, I would recommend cutting it in half (just whisk the egg first and only use half of that).

The only downside of this recipe is that Greek yogurt is by no means inexpensive and 1 1/2 cups is a lot to use. But I still recommend trying it, it was worth it :) 

Credit for recipe goes to Chobani