I recently found this YouTube channel – Kitchen In the Shire, starring Renee!

Renee has some pretty terrific baking and cooking ideas and recipes, and this is one of them. I can attest to it, because I made these English muffins yesterday. They exceeded all expectations, and are at least ten times better than anything you can buy at the store.

I never made English muffins before yesterday afternoon.

I followed her instructions almost exactly, with two exceptions: I used bread flour instead of all-purpose flour, because I was low on the AP, and I used SAF brand Instant Gold package yeast, which is meant for use in enriched doughs (with sugar, eggs, milk etc.). As an aside, I bought this yeast (one pound bag) several years ago and keep it in the freezer. It is still very active!

IMPORTANT: I weighed my flour. If I measure, I have a tendency to use too much.

My results?

The muffins are puffy, golden and delicious, just as promised! The cooking is tricky, because you have to maintain a proper temperature. I used a heavy-bottomed non-stick 12″ skillet on a gas range, and liquid coconut oil as the fat. If anything, the temperature I used was a bit lower than ideal, and it took a little longer to cook them. When they were cooking they puffed up almost like tennis balls!

Here is a picture of my finished muffins. They don’t look nearly as good as they actually are; you can’t really see how high they rose. I toasted some this morning for breakfast, and boy are they ever good tasting!