Are you in a hurry in the morning yet you want to have breakfast? not any breakfast but a decent one?

Do you have kids who are always bored of the routine breakfast?snack or the stuff you put in their lunch box?  Are you looking for new and refreshing ideas to make them eat their food instead of whining about it?

I have the answer for you..

English muffins

No, no , not the cardboard stuff they sell in the super market. I am talking about real English muffins made at home from scratch.

They are super easy to make. They freeze beautifully. They can be used in a million ways.

Sure there is always eggs benedict but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Think of them toasted with butter and jam. Made into sandwiches. Add a few toppings and turn them into a pizza that is ready in minutes. If you are in the mood for something sweet how about making them into french toast.The possibilities are endless. Here is one of them

Ok Sawsan, I am sold on the English muffins but why sourdough?

Well, using a sourdough starter makes your baked goods more digestible and more nutritious too. Lactic acids  present in sourdough starters make the vitamins and minerals in the flour more available to the body by helping neutralise the phytates in flour that would interfere with their absorption. The acids also slow down the rate at which glucose is released into the blood-stream and lower the bread’s glycaemic index (GI), so it doesn’t cause undesirable spikes in insulin. They also render the gluten in flour more digestible and less likely to cause food intolerance.

Convinced?head over to my tutorial on how to create your sourdough starter and come on this sourdough adventure with me :).

I want to make these but without the sourdough, can I ?

Sure,follow the technique in this recipe and use my pita bread recipe(which is a regular yeasted dough) and you will get amazing English muffins without the sourdough

Now let’s make English muffins

Sourdough English muffins

Recipe adapted from here

You can easily divide the recipe in half

2 tablespoons sugar
454g (2 cups) warm water
2 teaspoons active dry yeast or instant yeast
241g  (1 cup )sourdough starter, fed or unfed; fed will give you a more vigorous rise
843g (7 cups) All-Purpose Flour
43g (1/2 cup) nonfat dry milk
57g (1/4 cup or half a stick)butter, at room temperature
1 tablespoon salt
semolina or cornmeal, for coating

In a bowl mix the starter with warm water then gradually add the rest of the ingredients, except the cornmeal/semolina.

Knead — by hand, electric mixer, or bread machine — to form a smooth and elastic dough. If the dough is sticky; add additional flour if necessary.

Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and set it aside to rise for about 3- 4 hours, or until it’s almost doubled.

If you like the sour flavor to be more pronounced, cover the bowl, and immediately place it in the refrigerator (without rising first). Let the dough chill for 24 hours; this will develop its flavor.

Gently deflate the dough, turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface, cover it, and let it rest for a few minutes, to relax the gluten.

Divide the dough in half. Working with one piece at a time. Now you have two options. Either roll out the sough and cut it using a round cutter. Re-roll and cut any remaining scraps. Repeat with the remaining half of dough.

Or you can cut each half of the dough into 12 pieces (that is 24 total) and shape it by hand, to do that just roll each piece into a ball then gently flatten it

Do keep in mind though that muffins with cut (rather than flattened) sides will rise more evenly.

Place the rounds, evenly spaced, onto cornmeal- or semolina-sprinkled baking sheets . Sprinkle them with additional cornmeal or semolina, cover with plastic wrap, and let them rise until light and puffy, about 1-2 hours. If the dough has been refrigerated overnight, the rise time will be longer.

Carefully transfer the rounds (as many as a time that will fit without crowding) right-side up to a large electric griddle preheated to 350°F, or to an ungreased frying pan that has been preheated over medium-low heat.

Cook the muffins for about 5 to 6 minutes on each side, or until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the center of a muffin registers 190°F. The edges may feel a bit soft; that’s OK.

Remove the muffins from the griddle, and cool on a rack. Store tightly wrapped at room temperature for 4 or 5 days; freeze for longer storage.

Notes:

• If you’re having trouble getting muffins to cook all the way through on the stove top, cook until golden brown on both sides, then transfer to a preheated 350°F oven and bake until the muffins’ interior shows no sign of wet dough, about 10 minutes or so.
• For best sourdough flavor, refrigerate the dough for 24 hours before shaping and cooking the muffins
• This recipe is easily halved, if you don’t want to make 2 dozen muffins. Halve all of the ingredients
• If you are in a hurry you can increase the yeast by 1 teaspoon (that’s 3 teaspoons total). That will reduce the time it takes the dough and the formed muffins to rise
• You can slice these open with a knife but for better texture split them with a fork.Use the tines of the fork  to poke the sides of the  muffin (create perforations), in a single line along the equator then split the two halves. This helps create a surface that has more texture and thus is better for toasting and topping with all the different toppings
• To get the surface of your muffins to be more even , cook them for two minutes on one side then flip them and cook them for 2 minutes on the other side then flip them back and continue cooking