Homemade English Muffins Bread Machine Recipe (2024)

Freshly baked homemade English muffins with a crispy crust and a soft buttery center for a special breakfast. You will be surprised how easy it is to make them, either in a bread machine or with a mixer. Top them with butter and jam or bacon and egg, and you will never buy them already made again.

Difference between English muffins and regular bread

English Muffins are bread rolls usually used for breakfast.

They can be served with regular butter and jam or a more substantial breakfast with bacon, eggs, and sausages like the American egg Benedict.

The main difference between English Muffins and regular bread rolls is how they are cooked.

The Bread rolls are baked in the oven, while the English muffins are grilled on a skillet or griddle.

Compared to my homemade panini bread rolls, English muffins don't have eggs.

However, they have milk and butter, so they are not vegan.

This is why English muffins are lighter than regular rolls and well combined with a rich breakfast with sausage, bacon, and sunny-side-up eggs.

Ingredients

• Flour: all-purpose flour is best for dough with yeast
• Milk: I use half-fat milk for a lighter taste
• Butter: melted butter
• Sugar: regular castor sugar
• Yeast: I prefer to use dried yeast as it last longer in the pantry
• Salt
• Semolina flour for coating: optional

See the recipe card for quantities.

Instructions

I prepare the dough in the bread machine and grill them in a skillet pan.

Prepare the dough

Making the dough with the bread machine

1. Mix all the wet ingredients: milk and melted butter
2. Mix all the dry ingredients: flour, salt, sugar, and yeast
3. Pour into the bread machine basket, first the wet ingredients and then the dry
4. Turn the program to "dough" (no cooking) and let it run, normally the dough will be ready in 1.5 hours

If you don't have a bread machine, you can find detailed instructions to make the dough by hand or with an electric mixer in this article:

Getting ready to cook them

Prepare all the tools you need while the griddle is heating on the fire. You will need:

• 4 ring mold diameter 4 in - 10 cm
• A brush for butter
• 20 gr of butter, slightly warm
• The spatula to flip the muffins
• Fire kitchen gloves for high temperature

Once the griddle is hot, you are ready to proceed.

Warning: the griddle should be at medium heat. Too hot will burn the base of the muffins, and too low will not cook the inside.

Cooking the muffins

1. Butter the griddle
2. Butter well the inside of the rings with the brush
3. Place the rings on the hot griddle
4. With a large spoon, pour the dough inside the rings.
5. Cover the top and let it cook for at least 10 minutes.
6. You don’t need to smooth the top of the dough, as the muffins will fill the mold as they rise while cooking.

Hint: you can dust the bases with some semolina flour to give the classic English muffins coating

7. After 10 minutes, check the base to see if it is brown and if the muffins hold their shape. If they do open the molds and remove them
8. Turn the muffins to the other side
9. Lower the heat in the griddle, and cook the muffins covered for 7 to 10 minutes. You need to ensure that the griddle is not too hot; otherwise, it will burn the outside of the muffins.
10. Once the cover of the grill is down, ensure sufficient heat builds up inside so that the muffins will bake properly.

How to make sure the muffins are cooked

• It is important that the griddle is not too hot to burn the muffins and not too low otherwise, the muffins will not cook properly inside.
• To be sure the muffins are cooked inside, insert a pin inside them; if they are done, they should come out clean. If residuals of fresh dough are attached to the pin, they need to cook longer.
• If you need to cook the muffins longer, but the outside is getting burned, put them in the oven at 355 F - 180 C.
• Once you make them a couple of times, you will find out the best setting for your stove
• When they are done, let the muffins rest for a few minutes, as they will be easier to cut.

Making muffins on the outdoor bbq

During the summer, I make the muffins on my outdoor Weber barbecue. I bought a griddle just for that.

There are two main advantage of making the muffins on an outdoor barbecue:

• As I usually serve an Irish breakfast with my muffins, I can cook the sausage and the vegetables on the same griddle and keep them warm
• When you close the barbecue cover, I can create a griddle/oven combination to grill and bake the muffins simultaneously. As there is a thermometer on the Weber cover, I can check the temperature and make sure my muffins are not burning

How to eat English muffins

In the USA, they are served as a base of Egg Benedict: bacon, sunny-side-up egg, and a Bearnaise sauce.

Our favorite way to have English muffins is with an Irish Breakfast, which, since in France you cannot find the main ingredients, is not so Irish after all.

When we go to Ireland, we stock up on Irish puddings and do a proper one.

You can read the about me page to find out more about my links to Ireland.

Otherwise, you can serve them with butter and jam, which my friend Beth did.

As part of a Recipe exchange from our Facebook Group International Food Bloggers Cooperation, my friend Beth from Binky's Culinary Carnivalhad to choose a recipe from my blog and make it herself.

I was not surprised when she decided to try this Homemade English Muffin, and she also has two boys, ages 18 and 26.

They loved them so much; she has already made them three times, and I think she is still going for more.

Check out her blog and her amazing pictures. She has wonderful homemade jams to serve them with.

Bread machine vs regular mixer

You can use a regular mixer or a bread machine to make the dough for the English muffins.

The difference is that with the bread machine, you put all the ingredients in, the wet ingredients first, then the dry ingredients, and the bread machine does all the rest.

The basket will warm up just enough for the yeast to activate, and the dough will come out perfectly without any effort.

Once the dough is ready, you can proceed to cook them.

Instead, with the regular mixer, you must activate the yeast first, prepare the dough, then let it rest.

It is not difficult to do either way, but if you do the dough with a bread machine, you can focus on some other tasks, which is a great time saver, especially if you have a hectic life.

I prefer to use a bread machine, and you can read my article here: Bread machine. You can find more of my favorite kitchen items in my amazon shops: Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

If you don't have a bread machine, you can find detailed instructions to make the dough by hand or with an electric mixer in this article:

The English muffins are grilled; therefore, you need a griddle or a skillet with lid to cook them.

It is very important to have a lid as they need to be covered to cook inside properly.

The muffin dough is very soft, and to make a nice round muffin shape, the dough should be poured into a mold when cooking on the griddle- measuring approximately 4 in - 10 cm in diameter.

For that, I use the side ring of the Mini hinged cake molds; as an alternative, you can use metal cookie cutters. You will need four rings; otherwise, you must cook them one by one.

I also recommend heavy-duty fire gloves BBQ, as you must remove the molds to turn the muffins.

I also use a silicone brush to butter the skillet and the molds.

Storage

You can store these English muffins for up to 3 days in an airtight container.

Toast them in a toaster before serving them.

They also freeze well for up to 3 months

FAQ

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