The obesity thread inspired me to whip up a batch of English muffins. That and the fact that I ate the last of the previous batch last night.
As background, I gave up eating processed food to the extent that I can a few months ago, and I also only eat bread that I bake myself. Baking bread has always been a hobby of mine, and English muffins are handy because they freeze well and make portion control easy (for weight loss reasons). These muffins come out to roughly 30 grams of carbohydrates each, of which about 5 grams is fiber.
Recipe
This is the basic recipe. It can be jazzed up as desired as long as you don't kill the yeast. Some common tweaks include adding some oats, raisins, nuts, cinnamon, etc. Just don't let the pH go very much above 5.5, or 6 at the absolute most. A pH of 4.5 to 5.0 is desirable for whole wheat breads to encourage the best yeast activity and rise.
Ingredients:
6 cups whole wheat flour
1 pkg active dry yeast
1 cup warmish milk (room temperature to ~ 110 degrees F.)
1.5 cups warm water
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil or olive oil
Process:
1. Add the yeast and sugar to the water in a measuring cup or small bowl and stir it up, then set it aside for a few minutes. The water should be ~ 105 - 110 degrees F.
2. Throw everything else into a big mixing bowl and mix it up for a while using the mixer's mixing blade.
3. When the yeast starts to foam and smell... well... yeasty, switch to the kneading hook and gradually add the yeasty water to the dough while it's kneading.
4. Let the dough knead until it balls up, gradually adding more water if needed. Whole wheat flour tends to soak up the water. The dough also needs to be a bit on the wet side to rise properly.
5. When the dough's balled up, remove the hook, cover the bowl with a towel, and let it sit somewhere warmish to rise. At room temperature, this first rise will take maybe half an hour to 45 minutes.
6. Punch the dough down, plop it onto your work surface, and roll it out with a rolling pin until it's about half an inch thick.
7. Cut the muffins using a cookie cutter, drinking glass, empty tin can, or whatever else you can find that's round and the right size. Set them on a surface like a non-stick cookie sheet or a piece of waxed paper to rise. This second rise will take about an hour and a half at room temperature.
8. When the muffins have risen to at least 3/4 of an inch, heat a griddle or frying pan to ~ 280 - 300 degrees F., and carefully "fry" one side of each muffin. It should only take three or four minutes per muffin. You're basically just creating the flat crust on one face. Why? Because that's one of the things that defines an English muffin. It has flat crusts on both faces. This stage also causes some last-minute rapid rising.
9. After two or three minutes per muffin on the griddle or frying pan, remove the muffin with a spatula, invert it, and carefully put it on a baking sheet with the side you just crusted facing up. This way once it bakes you'll have flat crusts on each face of the muffins.
10. Finish the bake in an oven at 375 degrees F. for about 20 - 25 minutes.
Some people just fry both sides of the muffin and skip the baking. I find that doesn't work very well with whole wheat muffins because the wetter dough needs more heat to dry it out lest the muffins be soggy inside, which is both yukky and can cause spoilage.
Enjoy!
-Rich
EDIT: This recipe makes about 20 muffins.
As background, I gave up eating processed food to the extent that I can a few months ago, and I also only eat bread that I bake myself. Baking bread has always been a hobby of mine, and English muffins are handy because they freeze well and make portion control easy (for weight loss reasons). These muffins come out to roughly 30 grams of carbohydrates each, of which about 5 grams is fiber.
Recipe
This is the basic recipe. It can be jazzed up as desired as long as you don't kill the yeast. Some common tweaks include adding some oats, raisins, nuts, cinnamon, etc. Just don't let the pH go very much above 5.5, or 6 at the absolute most. A pH of 4.5 to 5.0 is desirable for whole wheat breads to encourage the best yeast activity and rise.
Ingredients:
6 cups whole wheat flour
1 pkg active dry yeast
1 cup warmish milk (room temperature to ~ 110 degrees F.)
1.5 cups warm water
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil or olive oil
Process:
1. Add the yeast and sugar to the water in a measuring cup or small bowl and stir it up, then set it aside for a few minutes. The water should be ~ 105 - 110 degrees F.
2. Throw everything else into a big mixing bowl and mix it up for a while using the mixer's mixing blade.
3. When the yeast starts to foam and smell... well... yeasty, switch to the kneading hook and gradually add the yeasty water to the dough while it's kneading.
4. Let the dough knead until it balls up, gradually adding more water if needed. Whole wheat flour tends to soak up the water. The dough also needs to be a bit on the wet side to rise properly.
5. When the dough's balled up, remove the hook, cover the bowl with a towel, and let it sit somewhere warmish to rise. At room temperature, this first rise will take maybe half an hour to 45 minutes.
6. Punch the dough down, plop it onto your work surface, and roll it out with a rolling pin until it's about half an inch thick.
7. Cut the muffins using a cookie cutter, drinking glass, empty tin can, or whatever else you can find that's round and the right size. Set them on a surface like a non-stick cookie sheet or a piece of waxed paper to rise. This second rise will take about an hour and a half at room temperature.
8. When the muffins have risen to at least 3/4 of an inch, heat a griddle or frying pan to ~ 280 - 300 degrees F., and carefully "fry" one side of each muffin. It should only take three or four minutes per muffin. You're basically just creating the flat crust on one face. Why? Because that's one of the things that defines an English muffin. It has flat crusts on both faces. This stage also causes some last-minute rapid rising.
9. After two or three minutes per muffin on the griddle or frying pan, remove the muffin with a spatula, invert it, and carefully put it on a baking sheet with the side you just crusted facing up. This way once it bakes you'll have flat crusts on each face of the muffins.
10. Finish the bake in an oven at 375 degrees F. for about 20 - 25 minutes.
Some people just fry both sides of the muffin and skip the baking. I find that doesn't work very well with whole wheat muffins because the wetter dough needs more heat to dry it out lest the muffins be soggy inside, which is both yukky and can cause spoilage.
Enjoy!
-Rich
EDIT: This recipe makes about 20 muffins.