Better English Muffins

My family has been surviving the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown by enjoying homemade English muffins. With two pre-teens, I'm making a double batch of these each week and have improved upon the already amazing King Arthur recipe. If you can't find bread flour, all-purpose flour will also work.

Breads

Prep: 30 min
Rise: 2 hours
Cook: 30 min
Total: 3 hours
Yields 16 english muffins

Nutritional Info

Carbs per serving: 30g

397g / 1 ¾ cups lukewarm milk
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 ½ teaspoons salt
25g / 2 tablespoons sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
570g / 5 cups bread flour
2 teaspoons instant yeast
Combine milk, butter, salt, sugar, egg, flour, and yeast in a large mixing bowl of an electric stand mixer.
Using the paddle attachment on your stand mixer, mix ingredients on the lowest setting until it forms a loose dough. Increase speed to medium and mix until dough becomes satin-smooth and shiny, about 3 to 5 minutes. Note that this dough is stickier than almost any other dough you've made and will stick to both the bowl and the paddle.
Using a silicone spatula, scrape the dough down in the mixing bowl into a ball. Cover the bowl and set aside in a warm spot to let the dough rise until it has doubled or tripled in size, about 1 to 2 hours.
cornmeal
Setup your electric griddle, but don't turn it on just yet. Place 16 English muffin rings onto the griddle, or as many as will fit. If your griddle is large enough to bake 16 muffins at once, great! If not, you'll need to do this in two shifts. If you don't have 16 rings, you the ones you do have in an alternating pattern and use the space between them. If you don't have any rings, that's fine. Your muffins will just be less round in shape but will still taste great. Sprinkle a generous amount of corn meal into each ring or spot on the griddle.
Using a silicone spatula, scrape the dough onto a generously floured work surface. Using a bench scraper, divide the dough into 16 pieces. Shape each piece into a ball, then flatten the balls until they're about 3" to 3 1/2" in diameter. Place into an open ring or spot on the cold griddle.
cornmeal
Sprinkle cornmeal on top of each English muffin.
Cover the muffins and let them rest until they've puffed up a little bit and are touching the edges of the rings, about 20 minutes.
Cook the muffins at 325°F on the electric griddle until golden brown on the bottom, about 12 minutes. Using tongs and a spatula, flip muffins over and cook the other side until the center of the muffins reads 195°F on an instant-read theremometer, about an additional 12 minutes.
Remove the muffins from the griddle and let them cool thoroughly. Using a large fork, poke holes all along the sides of the muffin to split them open. Using a fork, rather than a knife, to split them open gives them additional nooks and cranies.
Enjoy muffins with butter or jam. Leftover muffins freeze wonderfully for several weeks.
Variation: Cinnamon-Raisin English Muffins
You can easily make cinnamon-raisin muffins but adding two extra ingredients:
1 ½ tablespoons cinnamon
Add cinnamon when adding flour and mix ingredients.
1 ½ cups raisins
When dough has mixed and is satin-smooth, stop mixer and add raisins. Mix on low until raisins have been incorporated, about 15 to 30 seconds. Stop mixer and scrape dough down. Cover and let rise. Continue recipe as normal.

From MakeBetterFood.com. Sep 27, 2020. (makebetterfood.com/recipes/better-english-muffins/). Adapted from King Arthur Flour.

MakeBetterFood.com

Combine milk, butter, salt, sugar, egg, flour, and yeast in a large mixing bowl of an electric stand mixer.
Using the paddle attachment on your stand mixer, mix ingredients on the lowest setting until it forms a loose dough. Increase speed to medium and mix until dough becomes satin-smooth and shiny, about 3 to 5 minutes. Note that this dough is stickier than almost any other dough you've made and will stick to both the bowl and the paddle.
Using a silicone spatula, scrape the dough down in the mixing bowl into a ball. Cover the bowl and set aside in a warm spot to let the dough rise until it has doubled or tripled in size, about 1 to 2 hours.
Setup your electric griddle, but don't turn it on just yet. Place 16 English muffin rings onto the griddle, or as many as will fit. If your griddle is large enough to bake 16 muffins at once, great! If not, you'll need to do this in two shifts. If you don't have 16 rings, you the ones you do have in an alternating pattern and use the space between them. If you don't have any rings, that's fine. Your muffins will just be less round in shape but will still taste great. Sprinkle a generous amount of corn meal into each ring or spot on the griddle.
Using a silicone spatula, scrape the dough onto a generously floured work surface. Using a bench scraper, divide the dough into 16 pieces. Shape each piece into a ball, then flatten the balls until they're about 3" to 3 1/2" in diameter. Place into an open ring or spot on the cold griddle.
Sprinkle cornmeal on top of each English muffin.
Cover the muffins and let them rest until they've puffed up a little bit and are touching the edges of the rings, about 20 minutes.
Cook the muffins at 325°F on the electric griddle until golden brown on the bottom, about 12 minutes. Using tongs and a spatula, flip muffins over and cook the other side until the center of the muffins reads 195°F on an instant-read theremometer, about an additional 12 minutes.
Remove the muffins from the griddle and let them cool thoroughly. Using a large fork, poke holes all along the sides of the muffin to split them open. Using a fork, rather than a knife, to split them open gives them additional nooks and cranies.
Enjoy muffins with butter or jam. Leftover muffins freeze wonderfully for several weeks.
You can easily make cinnamon-raisin muffins but adding two extra ingredients:
Add cinnamon when adding flour and mix ingredients.
When dough has mixed and is satin-smooth, stop mixer and add raisins. Mix on low until raisins have been incorporated, about 15 to 30 seconds. Stop mixer and scrape dough down. Cover and let rise. Continue recipe as normal.