Home Made English Muffins

Who knew that English Muffins are actually a fried bread? Not me.
I've been eating these since forever. In the last few years I switched over to whole wheat version but was still a little unhappy with the additives.

I found this recipe of Honey Oat English Muffins while sloffing around on different blogs.

I found this set of frying rings cheap on eBay and was off to the races:

The first time I followed Emily's recipe as closely as I could. I'm not sure what the difference between White Whole Wheat and Whole Wheat are so I used what I had in the pantry - Robin Hood Bread Whole Wheat flour.


For my next batch, instead of mixing in a bowl, I tried this:

Our bread machine has a dough setting and I customized that a little to suit this recipe, and I also inserted a 30 minute warm rest at the beginning the cycle (which I read somewhere was a good thing to do with whole wheat recipes in general).


I also substituted Spelt Flakes for the Oatmeal which raised the protein and fibre levels some.


I also added the ingredients to the pan slightly differently than for the bowl, ie all liquids first, yeast last.


As you can see, I get a very good rise of the dough, and the bonus here is that the recipe now gives me 16 muffins instead of 12.

I (sadly) don't have a gas stove. (Very sadly.) And only 4 rings - so I worked in batches of 4 in a frying pan, 5 minutes a side at level 4, and then into the over @ 350 for 10 minutes on a cookie sheet. I lay a piece of tin foil over top while in the oven to keep from getting to browned.


This timing works very conveniently - for one batch is in the over for time it takes to do the next batch in the fry pan.


I just leave the rings on long for a minute or so after I press the dough to shape.


At 16 muffins, this works out to about 120 calories a piece. Pretty good!

I make a home made Egg McMuffin with one of these for lunch almost every weekday. 

Mmmm. Good!