Nooks and crannies

Nooks and crannies

Last week, my daughter Isabel informed me that she “needed” 26 English muffins to take to school for Wednesday. It was 7:00 pm on Tuesday…

After a few minutes of lecturing her on the importance of organizing the time and how he could not tell me about things like that with so little forewarning, blah, blah, blah … I started to make muffins. I had never cooked them and I really wanted to do it, but of course, I did not tell that to Isabel

Before I started, I needed to find the right recipe and after a lot of surfing, I chose Alton Brown’s, because his version is quite faithful to the classic recipe and it succeeded in achieving the famous nooks and crannies that are so important for purist of English muffins.

I loved the fact that they are surprisingly easy and fun to make, I loved that they are baked on a griddle rather than in the oven, and I loved the fact that I was able to make the requested 26, with a few spares for the photo-shoot the next day.

Ingredients

• ½ cup non-fat powdered milk
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon shortening
• 1 cup hot water
• 1 envelope dry yeast
• ¹/₈ teaspoon sugar
• ¹/₃ cup warm water
• 2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
• Non-stick vegetable spray

Special equipment: griddle, 3-inch (8 centimeters) metal rings or small tuna cans with tops and bottoms removed.

Directions

In a bowl combine the powdered milk, 1 tablespoon of sugar, ½ teaspoon of salt, shortening, and hot water, stir until the sugar and salt are dissolved. Let cool. In a separate bowl combine the yeast and ¹/₈ teaspoon of sugar in ¹/₃ cup of warm water and rest until yeast has dissolved. Add this to the dry milk mixture. Add the sifted flour and beat thoroughly with wooden spoon. Cover the bowl and let it rest in a warm spot for 30 minutes.

Preheat the griddle over medium-low heat (or to 300 ºF if electric).

Add the remaining ½ teaspoon of salt to mixture and beat thoroughly. Place metal rings onto the griddle and coat lightly with vegetable spray. Using #20 ice cream scoop, place 2 scoops into each ring and cover with a pot lid or cookie sheet and cook for 5 to 6 minutes. Remove the lid and flip rings using tongs. Cover with the lid and cook for another 5 to 6 minutes or until golden brown. Place on a cooling rack, remove rings and cool. Split with fork and serve.

Because I had to make so many muffins and they were only for tasting, I decided to use some small rings I had at home. The result were these  tall and beautiful fun size muffins. Kids loved them!

Enjoy!

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Tagged: Baked, confort food, cook, cooking, English muffins, family, food, homemade, Nooks and crannies, recipe