These sourdough English muffins are soft on the inside with a golden, lightly crisp exterior and those signature nooks and crannies. Made with sourdough starter, they’re a great way to use your discard while creating something perfect for breakfast or brunch. Toast them and load them up with butter, eggs or your favourite toppings, once you make these at home, they’ll quickly become a staple.
Sourdough English Muffins - Soft, Golden & Perfect for Breakfast
Sourdough English Muffins Recipe
Rated 5.0 stars by 1 users
Category
Breakfast
Cuisine
English
Author:
Ashley's Place
Servings
12
Prep Time
24 hours
Cook Time
16 minutes
Sourdough English muffins are such a great way to use up that sourdough discard and make a delicious homemade breakfast. You can prep these the day before and then simply bake them up the next morning so that are fresh for a mid morning brunch or maybe breakfast if you are an early riser like me.
Ingredients
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500g Flour (plain/all purpose or a high protein bread flour)(*see note 1)
-
100g Starter Discard (*see note 2 )
-
300ml Milk
-
65ml Water
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50g butter
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25g Caster Sugar (or white fine sugar)
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1 Tsp Salt
-
Corn Meal for dusting (*See note 3)
Directions
Melt your butter in a microwave safe bowl in 30 seconds burst mixing really well in-between each burst. This should only take 1-1.5 minutes max
Add all your ingredients into a bowl and mix your dough really well it will be a little bit shaggy still, just make sure you have mixed all the flour together well, cover with a damp tea towel
After about 20 minutes start to do your stretch and folds, the first round it may not stretch up much, that’s ok it will get easier as you do more. Pull your dough up and then place in the middle, turn and do the next section. We do 4 around the dough and do this 2 x so you will do 8. Do this ever 20 minutes for about 2 hours
Once you have done all your stretch and folds either leave it in your bowl to double or if like me you use a straight edge container, move it into this. Cover with your towel and leave it to double in size This will depend on the temperature of your house etc but it can take between 4-8/10 hours. Don’t look at the clock just go off your dough and if it is warm where you are keep an eye on it as it will rise quicker
Pop that container or bowl straight into the fridge. We don’t need to shape this pre-overnight proof
In the morning get your dough out and lightly dust your bench top with flour and place your dough on top, using your hands pull the dough out into a rectangle/square shape a few cms in thickness. We don’t want this too thin, the thicker you leave it the bigger or thicker your English Muffins will be
Get a piece of baking paper or 2 and dust with some corn meal and leave to the side
Once it is the right size and shape using a round cookie cutter or egg ring (approx 4.5-5cm in size) dip it in a bit of flour and press into your dough to cut out the muffins place them on your baking paper and continue until you have no dough left. You can push the little bits of dough left together and repeat the process of pushing it out and cutting into shapes. Cover the tops with more corn meal
Cover with a tea towel and leave them to rise and become puffy for about 1 hour, again this depends on the temp of your house so it may take longer if it is cold. You want them to be puffy and risen
Preheat a pan with a lid on a low heat and pop your English Muffins in the pan, depending on your pan size you may get about 4-5 in the pan at a time. Cover and let them cook on the low heat for about 8-10 minutes until it starts to get golden and rise up then flip it over. And cook again for 8-10 minutes with the lid on. Keep it on a lower heat so they don’t burn
Pop to the side and cook the next batch. Or if you have 2 pans you can do 2 batches at once
Let them cool before eating, you can eat them right away it sometimes just means the inside texture might be a bit gummy.
That’s it enjoy and eat fresh or toasted which I think is my fav way to eat these.
Recipe Video
Recipe Note
Notes & FAQ's:
You can use a Plain or all purpose flour for this or your bread flour, depending on what you have on hand. I used a bread flour for mine but you can use either, it changes the texture slightly but both should still work
You can use discard for this recipe it doesn't need to be peaked but it can be as well if that is when you are ready to make them. They will just have lightly different textures, but it is a great option for discard and not having to worry about timing it with the peak
Corn Meal is the yellow course looking flour which you can usually find in the baking section. We didn't have corn meal specifically here so I used the Italian version Polenta. It's only for dusting so any brand will do.
Q. I don't have egg rings will a cookie cutter work?
A. Yep a cookie cutter will work perfectly as well, just dust the outside with flour
Q. Why do I need to add corn meal on the outside?
A. The corn meal helps your dough not stick while rising or while cooking and is the traditional texture you find on the outside of English Muffins
Q. Do I not need to use any oil when cooking these?
A. No you don't, the corn meal helps it not stick these are a dry cook up that we do