{"id":979,"date":"2009-02-02T23:27:27","date_gmt":"2009-02-03T04:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jayandcarissa.com\/carissa\/blog\/?p=979"},"modified":"2011-03-25T22:56:09","modified_gmt":"2011-03-26T03:56:09","slug":"english-muffins-with-my-grandma-a-photo-tutorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/?p=979","title":{"rendered":"english muffins with my grandma–a photo tutorial"},"content":{"rendered":"

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over christmas break, i was lucky enough to get to spend half a day with my grandma on the way home.\u00c2\u00a0 she used to live all the way on the other side of the country, but she recently moved and is now a short, five-hour drive away.\u00c2\u00a0 while i was there, i asked if she’d show me how to make english muffins.\u00c2\u00a0 i have a strong memory of her making home-made english muffins for us when i was in high school and realizing that i don’t hate english muffins–i just hate old, stale, sour-tasting, dry-as-a-bone english muffins.\u00c2\u00a0 home-made ones are a totally different story.\u00c2\u00a0 so get down your flour and butter, roll up your sleeves, put on an apron and join us for a baking tutorial!<\/p>\n

first, you melt some butter in a pan with some milk:
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then, combine flour, yeast flour and sugar in a bowl:<\/p>\n

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my grandma has turbinado sugar.\u00c2\u00a0 isn’t it pretty?\u00c2\u00a0 i have this memory of her house from when i was very little and she had raw sugar (it looked so strange and big and brown!) and i think flour that were kept in drawers (as in, a whole drawer full of sugar) instead of in the bag or in plastic tupperware containers.\u00c2\u00a0 (mom?\u00c2\u00a0 dad?\u00c2\u00a0 am i totally making that memory up?)\u00c2\u00a0 anyway, i still associate raw sugar with my grandma because her house was the first place i ever saw it.<\/p>\n

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pour the milk\/butter mixture into the dry ingredients, along with an egg until well-mixed:<\/p>\n

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then add more flour until you get a stiff dough.\u00c2\u00a0 well, our dough was actually not so stiff and was pretty sticky, but it worked out okay in the end.<\/p>\n

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let rise in a warm place until doubled.\u00c2\u00a0 (i love this blue and white towel–it always reminds me of grandma’s house too)<\/p>\n

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when you think it’s risen enough, poke it with your finger.\u00c2\u00a0 if the indentation stays, then it’s ready.<\/p>\n

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turn it onto a lightly floured surface and cut the dough into circles.\u00c2\u00a0 i forgot to take a picture of my favorite part–cutting out the circles!\u00c2\u00a0 i love to cut dough with biscuit cutters.\u00c2\u00a0 in fact, i avoid “drop biscuit” recipes because i know i won’t get a chance to press the cutter into that soft dough and try to squeeze as many circles out of the first rolling as i can.\u00c2\u00a0 anyway, sprinkle some cornmeal into a pan (or onto the counter or whatever) for the next step:<\/p>\n

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drop each muffin into the cornmeal so that a little gets adhered to each side.<\/p>\n

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then, place them on a baking sheet (covered in parchment) to rise.\u00c2\u00a0 leave plenty of room between muffins as they will grow a bit!<\/p>\n

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once the muffins have risen sufficiently, heat your skillet.\u00c2\u00a0 we used an electric skillet, but any flat cooking surface will do.\u00c2\u00a0 cook the muffins for about 8 minutes, then flip.<\/p>\n

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check it out!\u00c2\u00a0 they look like real english muffins!\u00c2\u00a0 (only much, much better…)<\/p>\n

\"\"grandma says she normally substitutes a little whole wheat flour for some of the white flour, but we just forgot to do that with this batch.\u00c2\u00a0 also, the recipe instructs you to put some oil on your cooking surface, but i didn’t re-oil the surface after the first time and they still turned out fine.\u00c2\u00a0 the cornmeal helps to keep them from sticking.\u00c2\u00a0 these would be fantastic with cream cheese, peanut butter, lemon curd, honey, jam, tuna melts…. you name it, my mouth is watering just thinking about them.\u00c2\u00a0 here’s the recipe in brief (from the more with less cookbook)<\/p>\n

english muffins<\/p>\n

makes 18<\/p>\n

heat in a saucepan until very warm (130 degrees):<\/p>\n

1.5 c. milk<\/p>\n

1\/4 c. butter (they say margarine, but i used butter)<\/p>\n

in a large mixer bowl, combine:<\/p>\n

2 tbsp. sugar<\/p>\n

1 tsp. salt<\/p>\n

1 pkg. dry yeast<\/p>\n

1.5 c. flour (sub in some whole wheat if desired)<\/p>\n

with mixer at low speed, gradually beat liquid into dry ingredients.\u00c2\u00a0 increase speed and beat 2 minutes or beat vigorously by hand.\u00c2\u00a0 next, beat in:<\/p>\n

1 egg<\/p>\n

1 c. flour<\/p>\n

with spoon add:<\/p>\n

2 c. flour, or enough to make stiff dough<\/p>\n

turn dough onto lightly floured surface and knead just until well-mixed, about 2 minutes.\u00c2\u00a0 shape dough into a ball and place in a greased large bowl, turning once to coat dough with oil.\u00c2\u00a0 cover.\u00c2\u00a0 let rise in a warm place until doubled (about 1.5 hours).<\/p>\n

punch down.\u00c2\u00a0 turn onto lightly floured surface, cover with bowl 15 minutes and let dough rest.\u00c2\u00a0 meanwhile, sprinkle cornmeal in a pie plate.\u00c2\u00a0 roll dough about 3\/8″ thick.\u00c2\u00a0 cut dough into 3″ circles & re-roll scraps to make 18 muffins.\u00c2\u00a0 dip both sides of each circle in cornmeal; place circles on cookie sheets.\u00c2\u00a0 cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled—about 45 minutes.\u00c2\u00a0 brush large skillet with oil and heat.\u00c2\u00a0 when medium hot, put in 6 muffins.\u00c2\u00a0 cook 8 minutes on each side, or until brown.\u00c2\u00a0 repeat until all are cooked.\u00c2\u00a0 to serve, split muffins horizontally with tines of fork and toast.<\/p>\n

thanks, grandma!\u00c2\u00a0 next time, maybe we can make your cinnamon rolls?<\/p>\n

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over christmas break, i was lucky enough to get to spend half a day with my grandma on the way home.\u00c2\u00a0 she used to live all the way on the other side of the country, but she recently moved and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,26,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trip-down-memory-lane","category-tutorials","category-yum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=979"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1570,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions\/1570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}