I grew up devouring English muffins; I have in no shame in confessing that at a certain time in my life, I could eat an entire package over the weekend. But as my palate has become refined, the commercial varieties have seemed floppy, flavorless, and overall uninviting. Not the type of stuff I want my kids eating. So we went to work developing a legendary English muffin recipe.
English muffin dough, unlike some other breads, isn’t improved by heavy kneading. This minimal handling discourages strong gluten strands from forming, which means a more “open” structure--and in terms of English muffins, that adds up to nooks and crannies.
The dough, coated in semolina and cooked briefly on the Baking Steel Griddle with clarified butter (which has a higher smoke point than regular butter), attains the perfect texture, with a crispy exterior and craggy interior just begging to be filled with butter. This is what storebought English muffins want to be when they grow up. I make a batch almost every week and my sons think they are amazing.
