Contrary to popular belief, the English muffin wasn't invented by McDonald's. Contrary to another popular belief, the English muffin wasn't invented in England! Ok, that part may or may not be true. While doing some research on this topic before writing up this post (but after having baked them), I learned that there's a lot of dispute on where the English muffin came from. Some claim that it was invented by a British immigrant to the US (you know, the iconic Thomas's English muffins) in the late 1800's. Some claim that it was in England few hundred years ago, where the song "The Muffin Man" also came about. Are English muffins really English? Is Mongolian beef actually Mongolian? What's the deal with French toast? In the age of fake news and how you can't trust anything you read on the internet, I'm not sure what's the actual truth. But since this blog is about breads from around the world, I'm going to believe that it's indeed actually from England.
I used the recipe from King Arthur's website. They came out really good. They have a slight crusty exterior, and a soft chewiness of the interior, with the classic 'nooks and crannies'. The hardest part was trying to shape them into a nice round shape with even thickness. Another hard part was grilling them on the pan. Since my pan isn't so large, I had to bake them into 4 different batches, and finish the rest on the oven.
I would like to revisit this with a sourdough starter and whole wheat flour. And also, I'd like to put crumpets on the list for a future episode, as this bread seems to be more popular in England than English muffins.
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