Ok, disclaimer. I made these yesterday and they were fine. However, Mr. C. and I both agreed that (pardon me while I use a common vernacular) the muffins were just a touch too “Euell Gibbons” for us. (For more on Mr. Gibbons, see the short biography below.)

The original recipe, the one I made yesterday and you see in the picture, called for all whole wheat pastry flour. This sounded perfect at the time, but we have since decided that all that whole wheat is just too “healthy tasting” for our palates. We like whole wheat English muffins, but apparently the kind we have purchased in the past, had a whole bunch of white flour in the mix. (And yes I know, we are wusses. But we both grew up on white bread. In my case it was homemade bread, but it was still exclusively made with good old white flour.)

But I must say, we did enjoy the all whole wheat muffins toasted this morning and slathered with butter and local honey. But I am looking forward to building a batch replacing some of the whole wheat flour as listed below. Now, have I made these English muffins per the recipe below? Nope! Would I stake my reputation on this recipe? Yep. In fact that’s exactly what I’m doing.

Now, the one thing I can’t stress enough, is how bloody easy these English muffins were to prepare. Absolutely nothing to it. And I must admit, before building these yesterday I was a bit wary. But isn’t that always the case when you haven’t performed almost any task. Must be part of the human condition. You know, the part where you don’t want to fail, regardless of how easy or difficult the task. But then when you do “win”, you look back on whatever the endeavor was and completely forget about any trepidations you had in the first place. Sound familiar? Bottom line: I would count yesterdays’ English muffins as a win-win-loss-win.

I won by not giving in to my fear of failure. I won because they baked up beautifully. I lost because the muffins were a bit too “whole wheaty” for our taste. But I won again be changing the recipe enough to better fit our tastes. Basically a 3-1 win. And I’d say that’s an acceptable score!

So if you too want to score well with your family, cook up a batch of these English muffins. They are absolutely divine right off the griddle. But toasted for breakfast, there is just not a better vehicle for enjoying peanut butter, honey, or your favorite jam, jelly, or spread.

As always, peace, love, and happy cooking to all. Stay safe!  

Day 1: (sponge)

½ c. sourdough starter

1 T. honey

1 c. whole milk (can use 1% or skim, but whole milk makes them more tender)

1 c. whole wheat pastry flour (can use white whole wheat or regular whole wheat flour)

1 c. bread flour

Mix the starter, honey, milk, whole wheat pastry flour, and the bread flour in the bowl of your stand mixer. (I use a simple table knife to mix the ingredients.) Cover with a tea towel and leave at room temperature overnight.

Day 2:

1½ tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. kosher salt

½ c. bread flour, plus more as needed (could be quite a bit more)

cornmeal  

Add the soda, salt, and ¼ cup of the flour to the sponge. Mix together with your dough hook and knead for 3-4 minutes, adding remaining flour, and even more as needed. (The dough is perfect when it is tacky to the touch. But if too much dough sticks to your finger when pressed, add another tablespoon or so of the flour.) 

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead a few times into a round shape. Pat the dough to about ½-inch thick. Cut into rounds with a 3-inch biscuit cutter. Re-flatten the scraps to make additional muffins.

Place the muffin rounds on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and sprinkled with a dusting of cornmeal. Leave a good 2-inches between each muffin. Dust the tops with a bit more cornmeal. Cover with a tea towel and let rise in a warm place for 2 hours. (They will not puff a lot.)

Very lightly grease a griddle, or leave it dry if you have a non-stick griddle, and heat to medium-low (about 275 degrees). If the griddle is too hot, the inside of the muffin will not cook properly and the outside will burn.

Place the muffins on the heated griddle and cook for about 3-4 minutes on one side until that side is hard to the touch and nicely browned. Flip and cook for another 3 to 4 minutes on the other side, or again, until nicely browned. They are usually done when the sides are firm. If the muffins are browned enough, but still don’t seem cooked through, place in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 5-10 minutes.

Place cooked muffins on a wire rack to cool. Store in an airtight container or freeze for longer storage. Best if split apart with the tines of a table fork, toasted, buttered, and spread with honey, jam, or jelly. Peanut butter is also delightful on these muffins.

Euell Gibbons was a man ahead of his time or perhaps way behind (centuries) his time. He had a lifelong interest in food foraged from plants that were very nutritious but often neglected. In 1964 he wrote a whole-food cookbook entitled “Stalking the Wild Asparagus” and in 1967 “A Wild Way to Eat”. But his real claim to fame came in the 1970s when he starred in a television commercial where he asked, “Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible.” The statement was so bizarre, that it immediately caught everyone’s attention. And the commercial created a whole new set of customers for Grape-Nuts cereal.

In his later years, he and his wife joined a community of Quakers in Philadelphia where very morning he cooked the shared breakfast. It is said that he became a Quaker because “it was the only group I could join without pretending to have beliefs that I didn’t have or concealing beliefs that I did have.”