Muffins (English)

[victoria]

I attempted to post this last night but as it's not here I must have 'timed out' as it was posting due to some computer problems.

So, here goes again ....

I made some Muffins yesterday as the place we get them from here has 'lost' their supplier and hasn't found a new one yet.



Now they may look good but they are leaden. It didn't matter which method I used the dough would not rise. I tried the boiling cup of water in the microwave method and a low oven. I don't have an airing cupboard or central heat. I sifted the flour and the yeast was bubbly.

Any thoughts where I went wrong?

[nazimundo]

I have never made muffins Victoria but I think I can help as far as the rising of the dough is concerned, when I make bread I either place the bowl of dough on a sunny window sill ( shouldn't be a problem finding one where you live ;D ) or if it's dull I put it on top of the tropical fish tank and this works for me.
Hope this might be helpful to you.

Here's a link to a recipe I think I might try soon, perhaps you could put yours on here and I can try that one as well as they look lovely.

www.cookingbread.com/classes/class_english_muffins.html

Alfie

[victoria]

Thank you for your response, Alfie.

1) The sun has forgotten where Algarve is and as a result we have had our wettest winter in over 30 years.
2) We don't have inside windowsills in old cottages here ... they are on the outside to shield out the sun (when it appears).
3) I don't have a fish tank.

Here is the recipe ...

ENGLISH MUFFINS

1 cup milk
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 (.25 oz/15g) package dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup melted shortening
6 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
cornmeal

1. Warm the milk in a small saucepan until it bubbles then remove from heat. Mix in the sugar, stirring until dissolved. Let cool until lukewarm. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water and let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.

2. In a large bowl combine the milk, yeast mixture, shortening and 3 cups flour. Beat until smooth. Add salt and remainder of flour or enough to make a soft dough. Knead. Place in greaed bowl, cove4r and let rise.

3. Punch down. Roll out to about 1/2 inch thick. Cut into rounds. Sprinkle surface with cornmeal and coat both sides of the muffins. Cover and let rise 1/2 hour.

4. Heat greased griddle. Cook muffins on griddle about 10 minutes on each side on medium heat.


I have thought, I used lard instead of shortening ... perhaps this was my problem?

[nazimundo]

Thanks for the recipe Victoria, Ann says get Jim to hold the dough in front of the window not only will you get your dough to rise you'll know where your other half is ;D .
We're going to try the recipe as they sound lovely but so far we've not been able to find cornmeal. Might try it with Polenta I'll let you know how they turn out

[DAG]

Just looked it up Alfie, and you are quite right to use Polenta, just found this:

Question: What is cornmeal known as in the UK and Ireland?

The British book we turn to first for help in minding the gap between your terms and our terms, Cooks' Ingredients, says what we call coarse cornmeal, you call polenta or maize meal. Finely ground cornmeal, it says, we just call cornmeal, but you call maize flour. (We actually often call finely ground cornmeal corn flour, but that creates confusion with your corn flour.

[victoria]

Thanks, DAG, you are correct ... cornmeal is polenta in the UK, which I think is Italian. Cornmeal is American. Here it is Farinha do Milho (flour of corn) but not cornflour which is a thickening agent.

I look forward to seeing how yours turn out Alfie and Ann ... over the weekend I hope ....

I'm sure, done correctly, this recipe makes about 16-18 muffins and costs (here) about 50c to do so. A pack of 4 here (when available) costs €2,35.

Was speaking to Sis tonight about this and she is not a fan of muffins but of crumpets and I do have a recipe for that ... so promised I'd go dig it out for her.

PS Alfie, just looked at your link and funnily enough that was the 'other' one I was going to try with the egg whites .. but it seemed a bit too fiddly for simple me ....

[letitia]

Well the muffins turned out ok. We used sachets of fast acting bread yeast which meant we didn't need to cream it just added it straight to the flour etc. For shortening we used ordinary lard . We didn't manage to track down either cornmeal or polenta locally ( the nearest stockist is about 45 miles away ) my brother suggested using cous cous which we did after grinding it in a coffee grinder. We both thought that missing out half the flour would be a disaster but the second rising proved us wrong. The girdle we used was Alfies Grannies and it seemed to know what it was doing,........notice we use a GIRDLE not a GRIDDLE to cook on. We use a girdle both for cooking on and holding us in. ;D ;D The results were very tasty and we'll be making them again. This photo was taken during cooking



Victoria thanks for the recipe