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Easy Sourdough English Muffins are so Delicious

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Sourdough English Muffins are easy to make and are a delicious change from your typical breakfast bread. They make the best muffin sandwiches, too!

Sourdough English Muffins are easy to make and are a delicious change from your typical breakfast bread. They make the best muffin sandwiches, too! #BrunchWeek #sourdough #sourdoughstarter #discaredrecipe #breadrecipe #Englishmuffins

I have this sourdough starter. Yes. I know. Many of you have sourdough starters and started them during the pandemic. Well, mine is WAY older than that. Like, I had it before I met my husband and we’ll be married 10 years this October.

Unfortunately for that starter, I’m not a huge bread baker. It’s on my list of things to work on during the life of this blog. Now, it’s not dead, but it’s not the strongest starter either. I’ve been trying to grow it’s strength and use it more and more. These muffins will make that an easy goal to achieve!

Sourdough English Muffins are easy to make and are a delicious change from your typical breakfast bread. They make the best muffin sandwiches, too! #BrunchWeek #sourdough #sourdoughstarter #discaredrecipe #breadrecipe #Englishmuffins

What is an English muffin?

Well, it’s not English. Sorry to burst your bubble on that one. It’s basically a small, round, yeast bread. They’re sliced and typically toasted then topped with butter and/or preserves, sometimes eggs and cheese, and sometimes just butter and honey. They’re the base for the epic breakfast item Eggs Benedict.

The English muffin is more in line with a crumpet instead of a muffin as we know it. In fact, in other places they’re called American muffins. But the crumpet, for those that don’t know, is like a large pancake that’s cooked on one side. It has large holes on the top to hold delicious butter and jams. Sound familiar?

Sourdough English Muffins are easy to make and are a delicious change from your typical breakfast bread. They make the best muffin sandwiches, too! #BrunchWeek #sourdough #sourdoughstarter  #discaredrecipe #breadrecipe #Englishmuffins

I’m going to drop a name that will make sense to you. Samuel Bath Thomas (recognize the name?) emigrated from Plymouth, England to New York. He started making pre-cut crumpets in the bakery where he worked. I had no idea you cut crumpets. I’ve made them and I cooked mine on a griddle like a pancake. You didn’t flip them over for long. Just long enough to get a little color on the top, but not really needed for cooking the top.

Thomas’s muffins were so popular that hotels and grocery stores were ordering this toast alternative. So much so that he had to open a second bakery to meet the demand. He was making his famous English muffins for 30+ years before he finally trademarked his creation. He applied for the trademark in 1926 citing the use of the phrase English muffin was in use as early as 1894.

Sourdough English Muffins are easy to make and are a delicious change from your typical breakfast bread. They make the best muffin sandwiches, too! #BrunchWeek #sourdough #sourdoughstarter #discaredrecipe #breadrecipe #Englishmuffins

As a side note, the recipe is so top secret that rumor has it only 7 people know how to make them. And when a rival company tried to steal a top exec, they sued him to prevent him from taking and job. And to potentially reveal secrets of the infamous nooks and crannies recipe.

What is sourdough?

It’s kind of descriptive in the name alone. Sour dough. Sourdough is made with fermented flour and water that combines with natural yeast that’s in the air. I bet you didn’t know that yeast is in the air around us all the time. There’s a lot of other bacteria that is, too. We just don’t want to capture those and combine them with flour and water.

If you want to make your own sourdough starter, it takes about a week. I didn’t go this route. My mother purchased a sourdough starter online and sent it to me as a gift. I’ve baked a few things with it over the years. I hope to make more things with it since I’ve had some success with it making pizza crusts. Maybe I’ll try my hand at making one that has local strains of yeast from my area.

Sourdough English Muffins are easy to make and are a delicious change from your typical breakfast bread. They make the best muffin sandwiches, too! #BrunchWeek #sourdough #sourdoughstarter #discaredrecipe #breadrecipe #Englishmuffins

To make your own sourdough you combine flour and water and let it sit in a jar on the counter for a couple of days. Then you will feed the starter for the remaining time. Don’t fear the brown liquid. I have that all the time in mine when I don’t feed it for a while. It’s called hooch, like some people call moonshine. I equate it to the fermentation process that can create alcohol. In my head at least. It just means that your starter needs to be fed. I stir my starter thoroughly and then feed it again. Then it’s happy.

What is sourdough discard?

Well, unless you want a huge vat of sourdough, especially if you don’t use it every week, you have to discard some of the starter. That’s why there’s a lot of recipes for sourdough discard. Because, at least to me, it’s a waste to toss it and not use it! I mean, I worked hard(ish) at keeping the started a live after all these years. So, I want to use every bit of it!

Sourdough English Muffins are easy to make and are a delicious change from your typical breakfast bread. They make the best muffin sandwiches, too! #BrunchWeek #sourdough #sourdoughstarter #discaredrecipe #breadrecipe #Englishmuffins

Now, some recipes will indicate the percentage of hydration. That indicates, to me at least, the ratio of water to flour in the feeding. If I use 1 cup of water and 1 cup of flour, that’s 100% hydration. If you use 1 cup of flour and 1/2 a cup of water that’s 50% hydration. At first this didn’t make sense to me. Like, the lightbulb didn’t go on for me at first. Then I was feeding my starter and was like, “Oh! That’s what hydration percentage means.”

How do you make Sourdough English Muffins?

This is combination of the sourdough started and a polish. Because my sourdough starter is not the strongest, I added some commercial yeast to the pre-ferment. If yours is strong then feel free to omit the commercial yeast. I tried this recipe once before without it. But I’m not sure if it was the starter or the fact that I didn’t quite make the pre-ferment the right way. Maybe I’ll try mine without the additional yeast next time. I added too much flour to the pre-ferment the first time.

Sourdough English Muffins are easy to make and are a delicious change from your typical breakfast bread. They make the best muffin sandwiches, too! #BrunchWeek #sourdough #sourdoughstarter #discaredrecipe #breadrecipe #Englishmuffins

The first batch of Sourdough English Muffins was like little sourdough hockey pucks. Don’t do this. Make sure you only use one cup of flour with the starter, the milk, and the yeast for the pre-ferment. And make sure you let it sit on the counter for at least 8 hours. I left mine overnight. Then you can easily add in the baking soda and the rest of the ingredients to make those delicious nooks and crannies.

Once you add the rest of the ingredients and the dough forms a ball, you let the Sourdough English Muffins proof for an hour before rolling it out. I rolled mine to about 3/4 of an inch and cut them with a biscuit cutter. It’s a little larger than your typical biscuit cutter. It’s about 3 inches in diameter. That way it matched the egg rings I had to make eggs and delicious breakfast sandwiches. Which I have been eating every morning at work for the past 2 weeks. After they were cut, I dusted them in cornmeal and let them rest an additional 30 minutes.

Sourdough English Muffins are easy to make and are a delicious change from your typical breakfast bread. They make the best muffin sandwiches, too! #BrunchWeek #sourdough #sourdoughstarter #discaredrecipe #breadrecipe #Englishmuffins

That’s when you get the griddle out. I am lucky enough to have a double burger griddle pan. The trick is to get the two burners to heat at the same level. For me, the front burner is smaller than the back burner on the left side. So, I sort of eye the two flames and make sure they’re about the same, so the muffins cook evenly.

My Sourdough English Muffins cooked up super tall. I was concerned they might not be cooked all the way through. So, I popped mine into the oven for a few minutes to be sure they were cooked through. Make sure your muffins are in the 195 to 200 F. That’s the ideal internal temperature for a properly cooked English muffins.

Once they’re cooked and cooled, I used a fork to split mine open. If you use a knife you might lose some of those nooks and crannies. The fork splitting not only preserves them, but ensures that you might have a few more you didn’t know about. And with the delicious flavor of these Sourdough English Muffins, you will want all the nooks and crannies for sweet butter and preserves.

Signature

Sourdough English Muffins are easy to make and are a delicious change from your typical breakfast bread. They make the best muffin sandwiches, too! #BrunchWeek #sourdough #sourdoughstarted #discaredrecipe #breadrecipe #Englishmuffins
Yield: 10

Sourdough English Muffins

Cook Time: 22 minutes
Additional Time: 2 hours 10 seconds
Total Time: 2 hours 22 minutes 10 seconds

Sourdough English Muffins are easy to make and are a delicious change from your typical breakfast bread. They make the best muffin sandwiches, too!

Ingredients

  • 1 cup sourdough starter discard
  • 1 cup warm water
  • 2 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
  • 2 to 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda

Instructions

    1. Combine the sourdough starter with the warm milk, yeast, sugar, and 1 cup of flour. Stir with a whisk. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rest on the counter for at least 8 hours but overnight is best.
    2. Place the preferment in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add 1 1/2 cups of flour, the salt, and the baking soda and knead the dough until it pulls away from the bowl. Add more flour as needed until it starts to pull away from the bowl. Knead for 2 to 3 minutes before adding more flour.
    3. Turn the dough out onto your work surface and knead by hand until the dough is smooth. Place in a bowl coated with olive oil turning the dough to coat it with oil. Cover with a clean towel and let it rise for 1 hour or until it doubles in size.
    4. Punch the dough down and turn it out onto your work surface sprinkled with flour. Knead the dough lightly before rolling out to 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch thick.
    5. Cut the muffins with a biscuit cutter and place on a baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal. Sprinkle the tops with cornmeal. Cover with a clean towel and let rest for 30 minutes.
    6. Preheat oven to 300 F.
    7. Heat a griddle pan over medium heat. Cook the muffins on the griddle for 5 to 7 minutes per side or until golden brown. Return the muffins the baking sheet and bake at 300 for an additional 5 to 7 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches between 195 and 200 F.
    8. Remove the muffins from the oven and move to a wire rack to cool to room temperature.
    9. Insert a fork around the center of the muffin for fork split muffins. This provides the most nooks and crannies to hold delicious butter or preserves.
    10. Store in the fridge for up to a week or in the freezer for up to a month.

Nutrition Information

Yield

10

Serving Size

1

Amount Per Serving Calories 324Total Fat 1gSaturated Fat 0gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 1gCholesterol 0mgSodium 341mgCarbohydrates 68gFiber 3gSugar 1gProtein 10g

Did you make this recipe?

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Welcome to #BrunchWeek! This event has been around for over 7 years. It’s a fun way to share our love for all things brunch related to help celebrate Mother’s Day! We have 11 bloggers sharing over 30 recipes this year!! That’s 30 plus delicious recipes to help celebrate mothers, family, and friends. If you’re putting together a brunch, then you’ll appreciate all the variety this event offers! From cocktails to baked goods and even sandwiches, there’s something for everyone.

Here are today’s #BrunchWeek recipes:

  • Easy Sourdough English Muffins from A Kitchen Hoor’s Adventures
  • Smoked Salmon Dip from For the Love of Food

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4 Comments

  1. I’ve got powdered starter from Alaska that I need to get going. Love English muffins, can’t wait to give these a try!

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