English Muffin Toasting Bread (20)

 

I love fresh, homemade, English muffins.  They are leaps and bounds above the store version. However, they also take considerable time to make. When I saw this recipe I thought, "Can it be? English muffin in a loaf form? Will wonders never cease?!" And with this optimistic spirit, I began making my loaf. 

First off, as a general rule, if a recipe only makes one loaf of bread, I double the batch. Why go to all that trouble for only one loaf? So it was with this recipe. That means six cups of flour (which I measured in grams) and the other members of the dry team--sugar, salt, baking soda, yeast-- were combined in my Kitchen-aid mixer. These are the usual suspects for bread baking, though the amount of yeast is a bit higher than a standard loaf would require. I gave it a quick stir to blend. 

Then milk, water, and oil are microwaved together until they reach between 120F and 130F. This took about a minute in my microwave, though I stirred and checked after the initial 30 seconds. I turned the mixer of dry ingredients to low, then slowly drizzled in the wet ingredients. Once there was no sign of anything dry in the bowl, I kicked it up to high and let it run for one minute. 

The dough was semi solid. Not as stiff as regular dough. Not runny like batter. Somewhere in between. I measured and divided the dough/batter (datter?) and placed each half in a loaf pan that I had greased and sprinkled thoroughly with cornmeal. I sprayed a little Pam on my hand and did my best to push the datter evenly flat, and spread it into the corners of the pan. The pans were covered and left to rise. It took my loaves about an hour to get to the lip of the pan, because I used a 9x5" pan.

Now let's talk about loaf pans for a moment. You may think to yourself "I have a loaf pan. This recipe calls for a loaf pan. I'm set, right?" WRONG. There are different sized loaf pans floating around out there, and each recipe will be custom made with a specific size loaf pan in mind. If you put a recipe made for a 8.5x4.5" pan in a 9x5" pan, or vice versa, you may have some problems. This blog post explains it all perfectly: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2016/02/12/choosing-right-bread-pan 

I placed my pans in a preheated oven and let them cook for 11 minutes, then turned and rotated them. They cooked an additional 11 minutes. The internal temperature was 184, so I left them for another five minutes until they hit 190F. 

Can you see all the holes on the top of the loaves? It's such a unique thing to see the bubbles come all the way through the top of the loaf. After cooling, we cut into the bread and loved the soft, pillowy texture. It was so fun to see the multitude of tiny holes that perfectly mimicked the interior of an English muffin. I really enjoyed the feel and flavor of the cornmeal as well. Did it taste anything like an English muffin? No. Was it delicious anyway? Yes! 

 The biggest downside we found with the bread is that, due to the multitude of holes, the bread was almost crumbly. It was impossible to use for anything other than toasting. Also, I noticed that one of my loaves was a little split on the side. That means that the bread was under proofed. Next time, I will let it rise a little longer. Overall, it was a very quick and easy bread to assemble and bake, but not one of my favorites. 

Scores (out of 5): Breanna-3.5. Dustin-4. Michael-5. James-4.5. Andrew-3. Total 20/25

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/english-muffin-toasting-bread-recipe