Homemade English Muffin Recipe (easy step by step) (2024)

FAQs

What to use instead of cornmeal for English muffins? ›

We prefer semolina flour over cornmeal for its finer texture; it allows the crunch to come from the crust of the English muffin, not the cornmeal.

So we keep the levels low in order to keep the crumb soft, but we don't omit it all together because we do need to weakly support it. Cornmeal—cornmeal is essential to prevent the dough from sticking to everything! It also minimizes the direct contact between the heat source and the exterior of the muffin.

The dough used to make English muffins is firm. The traditional English muffin recipe includes sourdough or yeast, but no milk. English muffins come pre-cut. After toasting them, you can spread your favorite toppings on both halves.

They're cornmeal. Cornmeal is used on the bottom of many baked goods -- including pizza -- to help ensure that the dough does not stick to the bottom of a heated oven or pan. The cornmeal toasts (or sometimes burns) while the item is cooking and is perfectly safe to eat.

The small white particles on the bottom of Thomas'^® English Muffins are farina. Farina is a cereal food, frequently described as mild-tasting, usually served warm, made from cereal grains. This is used to prevent the doughball from sticking to the oven plate and also to give the product its unique taste.

Grits are yellow or white cornmeal in varying grinds, always made from dent corn and always coarser than coarse cornmeal, according to Roberts. Cooked, it's a porridge vital to Southern foodways. Still, some manufacturers don't distinguish between grits and polenta, labeling them one and the same.

If you have bread flour on hand, you can also substitute it for the all-purpose, but you'll get a nice texture and nooks and crannies with either. Semolina flour can be found at most grocery stores these days. It's what gives the English muffins those sandy bottoms. You can also use finely ground cornmeal.

The recipe starts out with normal, all-purpose flour and utilizes both yeast and baking powder to make the dough rise. The baking powder creates the signature nooks and crannies of a muffin, though these often rise to the top, leaving more solid dough on the bottom half.

Is an English muffin better for you than bread? A. English muffins are slightly healthier than bread because they include fewer calories, carbohydrates, fats, and sugar than bread. However, both have a high carbohydrate content, which can offer energy throughout the day, and many nutrients.

And It's not just cakes that benefit from a touch of vinegar, but also biscuits, muffins, and even bread. So when it comes to bread, it's the same concept – vinegar inhibits gluten formation which leads to a more relaxed and extensible dough, resulting in a less dense and chewy bread.

What do Brits call English muffins? ›

English muffins are usually referred to simply as muffins in the UK; sweet American-style cupcake-shaped muffins are occasionally referred to as American muffins to differentiate. They are usually consumed with tea or coffee, and sometimes feature in afternoon tea served in UK hotels.

A firm, dry dough will not produce an airy center. Avoid using ALL whole wheat flour because you may end up with bread hockey pucks.

Visual and Olfactory Indicators. To detect mold, one should examine the English muffin for any dark or black spots, which may have a fuzzy or raised texture. The presence of these spots indicates mold growth.

The White Particles on the Bottom of Thomas' are Farina

Ever wonder what the little white specs on the bottom of Thomas' English muffins are? It's farina, made from soft wheat semolina, the same stuff that goes into Cream of Wheat. It's there to prevent the dough from sticking to the griddle.

They're about the same size and have craters or holes. The differences are that crumpets are always made with milk (you won't find any milk in English muffin recipes) and are only griddled on one side, leaving one side toasted and the other soft—think sort of like a pancake's texture, only a little more spongy.

Additional substitutes. There are some additional foods you can use in place of cornmeal. If you don't have any of the options above, you can consider ground oats, masa harina, bread crumbs, ground flaxseed, polenta flour, smashed cornflakes, homemade cornmeal, or hominy grits.

In the UK we call it cornflour, whereas in the US they call it corn starch. Although, to confuse things, in the US they have something called cornflour which is what you might call cornmeal. To put it simply: UK cornflour = US corn-starch and US cornflour = UK cornmeal.

It's deep gold in color, and often mistaken for cornmeal. In fact, semolina looks almost exactly like cornmeal. The difference is, semolina has protein to build gluten; cornmeal has no gluten-building protein. The "cornmeal" on the bottom of your wood-fired pizza is actually semolina flour 99% of the time.

The mix will have additional ingredients like flour, sugar, and salt for additional body and flavor, as well as a leavening agent like baking soda for a fluffier texture. Can I use Jiffy corn muffin mix instead of cornmeal? No, the two aren't interchangeable.