English muffins
16. Aug, 2010 
3 Comments
The English muffin may be the most overlooked building block in eggs Benedict. Although there are many options for the base that undergirds the bacon and eggs, the English muffin is, to my mind, the most traditional. Unfortunately, they’re generally considered to be simply a starchy filler and a sponge to soak up extra hollandaise or runny egg yolk.
English muffins are one member of a family of enriched, yeasted, griddle-baked breads popular in the United Kingdom; other members include crumpets and pikelets. Where crumpets are griddled on only one side, muffins are cooked on both, creating two browned surfaces and, ideally, a honeycombed interior. According to the Oxford Companion to Food, they peaked in popularity during the 19th century, when muffin men would sell them on the street for teatime. (It also calls English muffins “a physical base and a pretext for eating melted butter”!)
The recipe I used comes from Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day, and is a process that, although it takes two days, is remarkably straightforward. It involves making a wet, batter-like dough, then resting it in the fridge overnight. The next day, a little baking soda is mixed in, and the dough is cooked on a griddle (or, in my case, a skillet) in cornmeal-dusted stainless steel rings to give the muffins their shape.
As is often the case, the trick is to cook them so they brown nicely on the outside but cook through completely. This involves filling the rings with the right amount of dough, and keeping the temperature low enough that the outside doesn’t burn. On my first attempt, I overfilled several of the rings, and the interiors were still slightly doughy.
Still, split – with a fork! – then toasted and dressed with butter and strawberry jam, these were delicious.
What’s your favourite way to eat English muffins?
Matthew Kayahara
The English muffins look delicious, and trust you to make everything from scratch! I agree with the comment about them being a conduit for melted butter, but I love them with strawberry jam on top. Also good with french chocolate spread for a multi-national experience.
I love them Egg McMuffin style – bacon (Canadian or otherwise), folded simple omelet, melted cheese, in a split toasted English Muffin. If you think about this, it’s just a variation on Eggs Benedict, with the melted cheese being a relatively healthy stand-in for the extremely high calorie Hollandaise sauce.
Absolutely, Skip! I can’t believe I forgot that! We love to make them with patties of Ruhlman’s breakfast sausage from Charcuterie. I think I know what I’m having for breakfast tomorrow morning…