Hi, I'm Gemma Stafford and today
on Bigger Bolder Baking we are making sourdough English Muffins.
Look at those.
So for this recipe, you are going to need a sourdough starter.
This is Breaddie Vedder.
After two years, he is still alive and kicking.
There were some near-death experiences I will admit.
There was a period where I didn't feed him for like six months.
However, he's back.
He's looking great, he's healthy,
and we're going to use him today in these muffins.
And he smells great.
Now, if you haven't made a sourdough starter before,
I've got a really easy video that you can follow.
It's easy to make it, easy to feed it and to maintain it.
Now, here we go.
We're going to measure our active starter.
So this is an active starter here.
I fed him a few hours ago to get him ready for this recipe.
So I started this sourdough starter the beginning of lockdown.
I think I started it in January 2020
before the whole world started making sourdough.
So that's how long he's been going.
And let me tell you, he makes a really good loaf of bread.
Into that, I'm going to add in some warm milk.
Whisk it in there.
You want it just warmed enough that when you put your finger in there,
it's slightly warm, you don't want it hot.
And then into this, because yeast needs sugar to live
and to thrive, a little bit of honey in there.
There we go. Just give that a mix.
And next we're going to add in our bread flour.
Bread flour for this recipe because it has so much texture
and you have all those lovely
nooks and crannies and to get that, you need strength in your flour.
So strong flour, bread flour because it has more protein and is stronger.
If you only have all purpose flour that’s okay,
but the bread flour, it gives you like a chewier base
and it also just holds those bubbles in the nooks and crannies so much better.
So it's up to you.
Just mix it together with a spatula.
Now, as you can see, this is very wet.
It's supposed to be because as it ferments, it'll get firmer and drier.
Okay.
Now, like I mentioned, this dough gets fermented.
So when you want to make these English muffins, start from the day before,
even the night before, and then you mix up your dough just like this.
And here's what we're going to do.
We're going to cover it with shower cap, or cling wrap.
You're going to let it sit
at room temperature for a minimum of 12 hours, up to 16 hours.
During this time, flavor will develop.
Those nooks and crannies will develop.
They'll make for a really lovely sourdough bread.
We just want to leave it, do its thing, and then we're going to come back to it.
So here's one I prepared yesterday just so it would be ready in time
for you guys to see what it's supposed to look like when it is fermented.
Now check out that lovely dough.
It's big, it's boozy, it's bubbly.
It smells like fermented.
It smells like beer.
This is exactly what it's supposed to smell like.
That is a good smell.
So before I turn it out, I'm just going to show you, in the recipe
we have some baking soda, also known as bicarbonate of soda and some salt.
What you want to do is just mix those two together.
And then what we're going to do is sprinkle them
over the surface of the dough.
So once you sprinkle it on top, we're just going to kind of fold
those into our dough.
We add them in later so they react later.
Give them a good mix.
Then once it's kind of folded in, we're going to flour
our work surface, turn out
that lovely dough, and now we are going to fold our dough.
So just kind of go from the outside into the middle
and fold it over.
We're going to do this until our dough gets nice and tight and forms a ball.
Just do this for around 3 to 4 minutes, 5 minutes or so.
Keep your surface nice and floured.
This helps to create strength, it creates structure in your English muffins
and it gives your flour enough strength
to be able to hold those bubbles when the gases are produced
during proofing.
So all of these things are totally necessary
and just make your English muffins so much better.
When you feel the dough in your hands, getting firmer,
less tacky, and just holding a better shape,
that means you've done enough folds and you're good to stop here.
Now, here's what we're going to do.
I have a nice tea towel here.
I'm going to cover this up and let it relax
for around 20 minutes or so.
Gonna let the gluten relax, and we're going to come back
and roll it in a little bit.
We just want to let this hang out for right now.
So our bread has been resting.
It's puffed up a little bit.
I’m going to do a little bit more flour on my surface.
What we want to do now is just roll this dough out.
Look at that.
So I love working with bread dough just look how beautiful that is.
Anyways.
Roll it out to around a half of an inch thick.
So here I have my tray with my parchment paper and I have a little bit of semolina.
And now for those of you who've had English muffins before,
you know that lovely kind of crisp, crunchy layer they have?
That's semolina.
And what they do is they sprinkle it on their tray
like this for their bread
to proof on and then it just makes its way into the dough.
Semolina is ground durum flour.
It's high protein.
I love to use this for pasta making and I also use it
when making pizzas because it's a really great way
to kind of cause friction because they're tiny little balls
between the surface and your tray or whatever
it is to slide your pizza on without using extra flour.
So you know, get familiar with semolina.
It's such a lovely ingredient to work with.
Here I have a three inch cutter
and I'm going to cut my English muffin
and place it on my prepared tray.
Cut them as close together as possible
so we don't waste any of this dough.
So a fun fact about English muffins, they actually kind of came
to be around the 1800s and they were sold door to door in England.
And you know that lovely nursery rhyme.
Do you know the Muffin Man? That's where it comes from.
Because there was a muffin man who used to go door to door,
which I just think is so charming and lovely and very British.
Okay, so there you go on my tray I have around 11.
You'll get an 11 to 12 English muffins, something like that.
We are going to cover it again with our tea towel.
So we're going to set these aside to proof
at room temperature for around 45 minutes roughly.
I'm going to show you what they look like
when they're proofed and ready to be cooked.
So it's been 45 minutes. These look great.
Now come here to me, I want to show you
what you're looking for, to know when they're proofed.
They kind of round out a little bit.
Do you see that, like those harsh edges have kind of softened?
They've got a little bit matte on top, like they're a little bit drier
underneath your finger. They've puffed up.
And when you push them down, they don't like as readily spring back.
So this means they're proofed.
So I'm going to stop talking.
Let's head over to the stove top and get them cooked off.
So it's cooking time.
Here I have a lovely big nonstick frying pan.
Now, if you can I say use a nonstick frying pan.
It makes life so much easier.
You can use cast iron either, and either of those will work pretty well
to give you the best results.
Now I have the heat on to like a medium low.
Like definitely on the lower side.
I'm just letting this heat up really well,
so it's nice and hot now before I put on any English muffins.
So I'm just going to place a few on the pan at a time.
So you don't want to overcrowd your pan.
Now, here's the secret when cooking English muffins...
a lid.
We're going to place that on and we're going to let these very gently cook
for around like, it varies, around 4
minutes, 5 minutes on this side.
And what happens with the lid on is that they start to steam.
So it's not a dry heat like the oven is.
They start to steam on the pan here.
They rise, they grow, they get lovely and soft; there’s moisture introduced.
The oven is going to give you a dry heat it’s going to give you a drier roll.
And they’re not as soft.
And that’s
the beauty of these English muffins is they're soft and bubbly and lovely.
So the pan is the only guy you need.
So i’m
just going to let these sit here, steam away,
and then we're going to flip them over when they're nice and brown.
So it's been around 4 to 5 minutes and these are ready to flip.
We take off that lid and very gently with a nice
thin spatula or something like that,
flip them over.
look at that, nice.
Gorgeous.
Oh my gosh, they are so fluffy.
Beautiful. Now no lid on.
Leave them now.
Same again. 3 to 4 minutes on this side.
Then we'll move them on and then cook the rest of them.
Our first batch are done. They are looking amazing.
I’m gonna set them over there to cool down and then just continue cooking off
the rest of them.
These are all cooked off, so let's get them plated.
These are so soft and fluffy with lots of beautiful nooks
and crannies to soak up all the lovely butter and jam.
Once you try these, you'll never go back to store bought.
I really hope you enjoyed this video, but the fun does not have to stop here.
Stick around, I've got tons more bread videos for you to check out
just as easy and delicious as this one.