English Muffins - Attempt #2 - The Winner!

I have big plans for breakfast tomorrow!  I made homemade sour cherry jam today and I made my second attempt at homemade English muffins.  If you missed my first attempt, click HERE to see how they turned out made on a griddle.

I wasn't thrilled with the "griddled" English muffins.  They were OK.  They were denser than I like but had good flavor.  I wanted to see if I could improve on them with a different recipe so I tried King Arthur Flour's Baked English Muffin recipe.

I did have to buy a couple of new ingredients for this recipe, hi-maize natural fiber which is just "special" cornstarch and pizza dough flavor.  The pizza dough flavor was optional but what the heck, I had to place an order anyway!  And I'd love to try this in my artisan pizza dough to see how it changes the flavor profile!
 

It's pretty easy, dump all the ingredients in a bowl and mix for a minute then let it rise for an hour.  The dough is pretty wet and sticky after first mixing.  And I have to say, it did smell a bit like pizza!

It rises beautifully. 

The muffins are baked on a greased cookie sheet in "English muffin rings."  Now the recipe says it will work just fine without them, but since when I have avoided the opportunity to buy kitchen gadgets?  I used the rings!  A little corn flour is placed in each ring.

The dough is then portioned out into the rings.  It was pretty sticky.  I ended up coating my hands with cooking spray to I could measure out the dough.

Once in the rings you just push it down a little then put another cookie sheet over it and let them rise for another hour.  This is what they looked like after that second rise.

 
This whole contraption is then put in the oven.  Halfway through baking you have to flip the pans over.  I was a bit nervous about this but it was really pretty easy!

For the last few minutes the top cookie sheet is removed so the muffins can brown.


A few minutes later, out of the oven come these beautiful English muffins!  I could tell just by feel they were lighter and fluffier than the ones I had made on the griddle.  They looked so perfect it was hard to wait for them to cool.

I fork split one and was thrilled at what I found!  Lots of nooks and crannies!  

Then came the ultimate test, toasting one.  Perfection!  It smelled amazing and tasted even better!  There's a hint of that pizza dough flavor in there!

So I've done it.  No more store bought English muffins in this house!  I'm so excited for breakfast tomorrow!  I'm going to make a zucchini pie topped with a poached egg and some habanero aioli and I'm going to serve it with a homemade English muffin and homemade sour cherry jam!  I can hardly wait!