English Muffins

Ever since a friend and I were discussing bread and converting plain recipes into English muffin style bread. I'm hoping to make chicken soup today, since I have some leftover chicken and my daughter has been asking for chicken soup... Bread would go nicely.

At King Arthur flour, I found two versions of a recipe.

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/english-muffin-toasting-bread-recipe
presents this:
This yeasty, coarse-textured bread makes the best toast ever, a perfect partner to fresh summer jam or preserves. A purely mix-it-slap-in-the-pan-bake-and-eat-it loaf, it's earned a place of honor in our King Arthur test kitchen Hall of Fame.

* 3 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
* 1 tablespoon sugar
* 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
* 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 tablespoon instant yeast
* 1 cup milk
* 1/4 cup water
* 2 tablespoons vegetable oil or olive oil
* cornmeal, to sprinkle in pan

Directions

1) Whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and instant yeast in a large mixing bowl.

2) Combine the milk, water, and oil in a separate, microwave-safe bowl, and heat to between 120°F and 130°F. The liquid will feel very hot (hotter than lukewarm), but not so hot that it would scald you. As a reference point, the hottest water from your kitchen tap is probably around 120°F (unless your tap water is so hot that it burns you).

3) Pour the hot liquid over the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl.

4) Beat at high speed for 1 minute. The dough will be very soft.

5) Lightly grease an 8 1/2" x 4 1/2" loaf pan, and sprinkle the bottom and sides with cornmeal.

6) Scoop the soft dough into the pan, leveling it in the pan as much as possible.

7) Cover the pan, and let the dough rise till it's just barely crowned over the rim of the pan. When you look at the rim of the pan from eye level, you should see the dough, but it shouldn't be more than, say, 1/4" over the rim. This will take about 45 minutes to 1 hour, if you heated the liquid to the correct temperature and your kitchen isn't very cold. While the dough is rising, preheat the oven to 400°F.

8) Remove the cover, and bake the bread for 20 to 22 minutes, till it's golden brown and its interior temperature is 190°F.

9) Remove the bread from the oven, and after 5 minutes turn it out of the pan onto a rack to cool. Let the bread cool completely before slicing.

This is the bread machine recipe from King Arthur, I like the look of this better:
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/english-muffin-bread-recipe


For those of you who don't feel like doing a lot of rolling and cutting, here's an English muffin bread developed for the bread machine. It makes a mild-flavored, light-textured 1 1/2-pound loaf, perfect for toast.

1 teaspoon vinegar
1/2 cup water
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter or vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast

Program your machine for basic white bread, light crust. Midway through the second kneading cycle, check the dough; it should be soft, smooth and slightly sticky. Adjust the dough's consistency with additional flour or water, if necessary (as this recipe was developed in the dead of winter, when flour is at its driest, you may find you need to use more flour -- or less water -- in the summer.) For a true English muffin effect, remove the dough after either the final kneading or before the final rise and roll it in cornmeal. Place the dough back in the machine to rise and bake. Yield: 1 loaf.

Nutrition information per serving (1/2-inch slice, 45g): 80 cal, 1.5g fat, 3g protein, 16g complex carbohydrates, 1g dietary fiber, 1mg cholesterol, 225mg sodium, 56mg potassium, 9RE vitamin A, 1mg iron, 55mg calcium, 37mg phosphorus.

I did work with the traditional recipe, but I tried some of my own twists. I doubled the recipe and divided the dough into three loafs instead of two. I used half unsweetened soy milk and half two percent milk. I used 3 cups whole wheat flour and 3 cups unbleached white flour. I used local honey with a touch of sugar instead of just sugar. And I added a pinch of baking powder. One of these days I will learn to follow a recipe.

I would love to try this:
(and reading her entry is very enjoyable) but I don't want to deal with grams today.
http://www.shesimmers.com/2010/03/english-muffin-bread-soft-loaf-of-nooks.html

While my bread didn't look as nook and cranny-ish as I would have liked, it tasted like an english muffin.