I don’t know about you, but I find that “English” redundant. A muffin is a muffin is a toasted bread and is not now, nor ever shall be, an oversized bun.
Right, with that off my chest…
I am still not feeling very enthused about anything that involves any level of effort or interest but I do have 4 ounces of 2-week-old yeast needing to be dealt with. I thought I’d make a start on the Bucket List and have a go at Muffins. Nothing extravagant, the recipe in the River Cottage Handbook 3 uses just 500g of flour to make 9 muffins. That will do for an experiment. If this works out, I shall bulk-bake muffins in the future as they are our preferred bread product for weekend breakfasts and they often appear at tea-time too. They make great bacon and egg sandwiches and are perfect for topping with Marmite and a poached egg, or made pizza-style with some tomato, cheese and pepperoni. Toasted and topped simply with butter and home-made marmalade… a perfect feast.
Today’s Muffins are being made with the Organic Stoneground Unbleached flour from Bacheldre Watermill. If I had a proper AGA, I would be cooking these straight on the hotplate but as I only have an ancient and rusting Rayburn, I shall be deploying a pan or two. Unfortunately, I do not have two pans that match in terms of bottom weight and materials, so I shall get two results from my muffins. It might be interesting to see if the best ones come from my ancient and well-used Stella Stainless Steel copperclad frying pan or from my cheapie Lidl non-stick griddle pan.
There is a cold wind blowing through the house today – raising the dough may take a while, but I do hope to have muffins in time for tea.