Going to her house every summer was not just a vacation it was an EVENT. Her house was old, classic white with a green roof and wavy glass and barns and even a stone milk house. Best of all she had acres and acres of woods, fields and trees for me to explore and a raspberry patch with both the biggest raspberries and biggest mosquitoes that God ever created.  She kept a pot of coffee on the back of the stove on warm and left the kitchen door unlocked even when she ran errands in case the postman or the delivery man needed a pit stop and a hot cup of coffee.  And she was an amazing cook by anyone’s standard.

  This is a recipe she narrated to me one summer…written just as she narrated it. My memories of it are warm, toasted, with butter melting over it, and a spoon of homemade raspberry jam right in the center. It is wonderful stuff and you don’t have to go to the trouble of shaping the muffins.

5 3/4 c flour, give or take

2 pkgs dry yeast

1 tbs sugar, prit-near overflowing

2 tsp salt, maybe some less

1/4 tsp soda

2 c room temp milk

1/2 c water-bath temperature

Cornmeal

Mix 3 c flour and the rest of the dry ingredients. Add the milk and water and beat for a bit..maybe 2 minutes. Stir in enough flour to make a stiff batter. Spoon into 2 loaf pans that are greased and dusted with cornmeal. Sprinkle cornmeal on the top. Let rise 45 minutes

Bake at 400 for 25 minutes and cool. 2 loaves english muffin bread

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  Here is my tale of woe..First my computer went down..then the broudband people say that our house is too far from the base…and we should not be able to get broadband at all even though we have had it for 3 years.  In any casre it is not working now..AH! TThe joy of living in the country..200 feet from the road…

  ANyway..I am on a computer at my husband’s work…and his boss and the friend that is letting me use this computer will be getting a nice baked something very soon…

   This morning I made english muffins. They are pretty easy to do..altho mine came out a little runny so I spooned the batter into canning jar lids and that helped them keep their shape just fine!  The homemade english muffins are more delicate..and I thought they had more the texture of crumpets.

  1 2/3 c milk

2 1/2 Tbs butter

1 pkg yeast

1 T sugar

1/3 c warm water

1 egg

2 tsp salt

1Tbs vinegar

5 c flour

cornmeal for dusting

Combine all ingredients except cornmeal and 1/2  the flour.  Beat well, add remaining flour and mix for 6 minutes in mixer at med speed. Let rise 1 hour.

  Lift out 1/2 c portion of the dough onto a cornmeal sprinkled counter. Shape into rounds and let rise 8 minutes. Cook on a griddle over medium low heat..6 minutes on each side.

12 muffins

NOW…when I spooned the batter out it was runny..so I skipped the shaping stage and spooned about 1/4 c batter into mason jar rings that I had oiled and placed on the griddle. Wen they were done on one side I just pushed them through and this worked very well. Also, I omitted the vinegr and used sour milk and 1/2 tsp baking soda, mainly because I had 1 gallon of soured milk… :/

 The muffins were light, chewy and just what an english muffin should be and I got the most beautiful pictue of one, on a vintage plate with the butter melting into a glob of strawberry jam..You’ll love it.

  Since I am on a computer I am going to do a few more recipes that I have been planning to give you this week. And I hope that the technie hell that I am living in will be resolved in the next day or two and I can get pictures up!

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I fed my starter a bit too much, and had to do something with the overflow, so it went into feeding this delightful treat — so delightful, in fact, that my 5-yo had the brilliant idea of shaping them into hearts! My original plan was the traditional shape, and I was just getting ready to open a couple of tins of tuna which is how I made it years and years ago… not English Muffins with Tuna, silly, I used the tins to shape the muffins! But I had to admit using a heart shaped cutter would be so much easier, and would please my little princess. And so I acquiesced.

The recipe comes from baking queen Nic over at Baking Bites, who in turn got it from this little book here:

I just got it from the library and will be trying other things, as these turned out perfectly. But first, the RCS (Requisite Crumb Shot):

Many Christmases ago when I was just beginning to discover the world of good food, I was looking for something to serve on New Year’s Day to visiting guests, and I stumbled upon these lovely English muffins from Wolferman’s. I placed an order for one of their sampler cases, and employed a pack into service as the base for awesome Eggs Benedict. I think the practice should be resurrected come January, as we have now found a homemade version that satisfies and satisfies well.

Oh, and if you’re wondering why these are called English muffins and why they’re so different from regular muffins, visit The Food History site. A different story is recounted at Food Reference.com. Whichever one is the true history, one thing remains: the only way to split an English muffin properly is with the use of a fork. (Or, okay, an English muffin splitter, but I got me one of those gimmicks, and believe you me, they’re not worth it.)

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