Homemade Sourdough English Muffins

Mark has been spoiling our family with his delicious homemade sourdough English muffins!! Yay for awesome hubbies!!! Want to make some of your own? See his guest post below!



English muffins from the store can be kind of expensive, but they’re really not all that hard to make yourself (and they taste a whole lot better!). It does, however, take a bit of planning ahead! Here’s the recipe I’ve been using the last month or so to make our own:

Ingredients:

  • 1 C sourdough starter (You can get a free starter culture, along with instructions for care from Carl Griffith. Yay!)
  • 1 C Milk
  • 1 C all purpose flour
  • 1 C spelt flour (if you can find it, otherwise just use all purpose flour)
  • 1 TBSP sugar
  • 3/4 TSP salt
  • 1 TSP baking soda
  • Cornmeal or semolina

Combine the starter, milk and flour in a large bowl. Once it is mixed, cover it with plastic wrap and let it rise for at least 8 hours, or over night. Since our house is kind of (really) cold in the winter, I put the bowl on top of the fridge, where it is warmer.

After the dough has risen, add the sugar, salt and baking soda. If the mixture is too sticky, work in some flour until you have a nice workable dough. It shouldn’t stick to your fingers or the working surface. If you want to spice it up a bit, try adding some reconstituted cranberries or raisins. Sprinkle some of the cornmeal on top of some waxed paper in preparation for the cut muffins.

Now, spread the dough out until it is about 3/4″ thick and cut the muffins out, placing them on the waxed paper. Let them rise again for about 45 minutes before cooking them. Don’t worry if they don’t rise too much; they will rise in the pan quite a bit. We don’t have any sort of muffin cutting device, so we use a double old fashioned glass (non-tapered) to cut them.

Put the cut muffins into a hot skillet that has been sprayed with some non-stick spray or butter. Leave them on for a few minutes per side, take them off and let them cool.

Yum!

Comments

  1. those look so fluffy and delicious!!! great pictures..i love their golden color!

  2. Sometimes it’s amazing: I opened my computer looking for a recipe to make muffins with my sourdough starter… and here you are. Thank you !

  3. Those look amazing!

  4. I was going to make some of these when I was bread making but didn’t get around to it, unfortunately I am unable to eat wheat at the moment so I won’t be able to make any and they look yummy too!

  5. They look so good!

  6. I don’t want to ask a dumb question (but I may be doing so anyway)….do you reconstitute the starter or just put the powder in?

    Can’t wait to make these…we love English muffins!

    Thanks!

  7. Dear Mark,

    I always knew you were good at “cuttin’ muffins”.

    ….better crack open a window! 😉

    Love,
    Valerie

    • I thought that was cheese? :>)

      I’ve been meaning to make english muffins, and if I can employ my poor neglected starter, all the better! Will be making them soon! (and linking, of course, one of these days…)

  8. Those look so yummy!!! Yay for husbands that love to cook!!

  9. I make my own Sourdough English Muffins too! I love them. I thought I’d share the easy way to make your own starter that I learned from Mary Jane’s Farm magazine. Here’s the link: http://www.maryjanesfarm.org/Recipes-Patterns-Instructions/no-knead_bread-2.asp (I love my starter, however, I didn’t have much luck with the bread recipe here).

    Basically, you just mix flour and water together and feed the starter a little bit everyday. We use ours on the weekends for pancakes and waffles. And I use it for my english muffins too.

  10. Sounds like sourdough starter could be a science project by itself. The muffins look yummy!

  11. ooohhhh, yummy. So incredibly yummy, would you mail some to me? I never keep starters alive and the yeast dies a horrible death.

  12. Jeannie,

    Unfortunately, you can’t just sprinkle the powder in! However, this is a good thing. You keep the yeast culture growing, almost like keeping a pet. You feed it flour (or other things if you want something more exotic), drain the waste, and it keeps producing more yeast for you to bake with. You can also divide the culture and share it with friends.

    You can keep the culture growing for years and years, making endless batches of English muffins and bread! 😀

    Mark

  13. They sound yummy. Thank you for sharing.

  14. these look really yummy! Welldone to your hubby!