“Do you know the Muffin Man
Who lives on Drury Lane?”

I did a report on English Muffins for class, I chose that topic because I had never made them before. Oh, sure, I had heard of them. Even seen them on the shelves in supermarkets. But (gasp! shock! horror!) I had never, ever, eaten one! Scandalous I know, I’ll hand my citizenship over any day now. My course books from the culinary course in the UK didn’t even contain a recipe for them.

How can something so… so English, be so ignored by the English?

The history of the English Muffin seems to be unclear. The first printed name can be traced back to the 18^th Century, though it is uncertain whether it derives from the old French moufflet meaning soft, or from the low German muffe meaning cake.

However it is generally accepted that muffins came to popularity in the Victorian era. The family baker would make them for the ‘downstairs’ servants from leftover bread, dough scraps and mashed potato fried together on a griddle. At some point members of the families tried some and began to request them generally at teatime (afternoon tea). As a result of this English muffins shot to popularity and factories appeared across the British Isles. Men would roam the streets with a tray of muffins carried either round their necks or on their heads, ringing a bell announcing their presence.

They became so popular that in the 1840s an Act of Parliament had to be passed to stop the muffin men from ringing their bells, there were about three thousand men at the time and the public objected to the noise^! By the 19^th century a children’s song and game (the one I quoted at the start of the post) had become popular, and is still widely known today. It was even used in Shrek!

It is believed that muffins made their way to America in 1875 with Samuel Bath Thomas who sailed from Plymouth. He emigrated to New York City taking his mother’s recipe with him and in 1880 opened his own shop in Manhattan selling the newly named ‘English Muffins’ to an American audience.

An 18th Century recipe by Mrs Hannah Glasse warns against the perils of cutting a muffin with a knife “they will be as heavy as lead.” Pulling apart by hand was the only way to eat them. Only once they had been buttered and toasted could you cut them in half with a knife if you desired.

Muffins are nice and simple to make, they just require some patience. They use what’s known as a “straight dough method” this means everything is thrown in together (of course taking care that the salt is mixed in before the yeast is added). There are a few anomalies to this recipe though. Against everything we know about making bread cold water is used!

This is because the dough is mixed on medium speed for 25 minutes, if warm water was used the friction in addition to the warmth from the water would cause the dough to become too warm and it runs the risk of killing off all your yeast.

A paddle is also used, beating the mix over kneading it… I don’t actually know why, I just know that it works.

The dough will be very soft once done, but it will hold together. Grease the inside of a ziplock bag and place the dough inside it. I then put that inside a second bag just to be safe. Place in the fridge overnight (mine went about 24 hours and was just dandy), you’ll have a big dough pillow by the next day.

Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and gently knock down, then weigh out 1.5oz boules. This made slightly smaller than average muffins, 2oz will make regular sized. Round them all out  and place on individual squares of greased parchment. Once they have rested about 5 minutes press to flatten them slightly (they will be elastic and bounce back a little).

Leave them to proof, they don’t need to completely double in size for once, but about 50% bigger is good.

Warm a skillet on medium heat (cast iron is best, we just used a standard pan) give a light coating of melted butter. Take your muffin and place in the pan upside down, you can then peel the parchment off the bottom. We do them like this as the dough is very soft and handling them would cause all the air to be knocked out of them, they’re not very resilient.

We could fit 4 in our pan, you don’t want it overcrowded, both for heat control and so you have room to get a spatula in to flip them. The goal with these is to cook them low and slow, so the outside is a perfect golden hue while the inside is fully cooked. If you’re careful you can stick a probe in through the side of a muffin to check, 185F is good.

I placed mine onto a clean tea towel to cool down, though I couldn’t resist eating one or two fresh out the pan, they don’t even need butter like that they’re so light and fluffy.

If you have more patience you can split them and toast them for breakfast, or even use them for eggs benedict!