English Muffins are great for breakfast, so imagine a loaf of bread for toasting, made to have the same texture and flavour. This is such a great toasting loaf I sometimes wish breakfast would never end.
Having recently made some English Muffins, which were very good indeed, I had an idea for a bread that would taste the same, with a similar texture too. I did a quick search and came across a recipe on King Arthur Baking for English Muffin Toasting Bread. That seemed to be exactly what I was thinking of, so I decided to try it.
The recipe is very simple indeed, and certainly is much easier than making the actual English Muffins. Toasted the bread has the same great flavour and texture as the actual muffins. So, for me, this is a very good way to get what I want.
The process is very simple and takes very little effort. The dough can be made entirely by hand in just a few minutes. Then it just has to be rested until it has risen enough before baking.
I did a test run to see how it would turn out and was very pleased with the results. It was exactly what I had imagined. So I then made it again, with a video, ready for posting here.
This is one recipe that I shall be making fairly regularly from now on.
Update: I am adjusting the liquid measures slightly, based on information found on King Arthur Baking site. The original recipe mentioned 1 cup of milk and 1/4 cup of water, but gave weight measures which did not equate to those. So I have now adjusted the recipe so the ‘ml’ more accurately reflects that.
If you prefer the traditional English Muffins they are easy to make too.
English Muffin Toasting Bread – Video
Ingredients:
- 360g(2 1/3 cups + 1tbsp, based on scooping packed flour into a 250ml cup) bread flour
- 14g(1 tbsp) sugar
- 9g(1 1/2 tsp) salt
- 9g(3 tsp) instant yeast(if you only have one 7g packet of yeast use that and proof longer)
- 227ml(1 cup – 1 tbsp) milk
- 58ml(1/4 cup – 1/2 tsp) water
- 25g(2 tbsp) vegetable oil
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
Method:
- Grease a 2lb loaf tin and line with cornmeal or semolina(or flour if that is all you have)
- Place the flour, salt, sugar and baking soda into a large bowl and stir to combine(you can do this in a stand mixer but by hand is very easy).
- Sprinkle the yeast over the top.
- Place the milk, water and oil into a single container and heat to 49C/120F(slightly hotter than lukewarm).
- Stir the yeast into the other dry ingredients.
- Pour the heated liquid over the top and stir with a wooden spoon, or a danish dough whisk, to get fully combined.
- Continue stirring and stretching for 2 to three minutes, until everything has come together into an elastic dough that is quite smooth.
- Scrape the dough out and place in a 2lb/900g loaf tin.
- Level the dough over the entire base of the tin and then cover with greased plastic wrap.
- Allow to proof in a warm place for about 45 minutes, until the dough has risen to about 1/4 inch above the top of the loaf tin.
- As the dough proofs preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/400F.
- When the dough is proofed place it in the oven and bake for 22 to 27 minutes, until the top has turned a nice even brown colour. The internal temperature should reach 88C/190F. ( I baked mine for 25 mins, and the temperature internally was higher than that).
- Remove from the oven and turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Absolutely delicious and tender, thank you Geoff!
HI Angela. You are very welcome. I am glad you like it.