In pastry school, I fell in love with homemade English muffins and I’ve been obsessed with making them ever since. Taste them fresh and you can never go back to store-bought, unless of course, you’re in a pinch and need some for your egg bennies. Last year, I made Napa’s Model Bakery English muffins, my favorite. The bakery cooks them on a cast-iron griddle with a lot of clarified butter so the muffins get super crisp and almost flaky. So good.
So how do Bouchon Bakery’s English muffins compare? The main difference is in the cooking method. They’re baked vs griddled. Second, the recipe calls for a (4 day) starter. The things I do for homemade goodness. Read on to find out how I did with this recipe.
At Bouchon Bakery, they use a silicone mold to bake them but I didn’t want to buy it just for this recipe so I used my English muffin rings. The first batch, I did exactly 1/4 cup and they were too thin so the interior wasn’t very substantial. The second batch, I did a generous 1/4 cup and after proofing, they rose over the top which was perfect. The interior was “holey” and fluffy.
The muffins get nice and golden all around. One other difference I noticed between these and griddled versions is the shape. These muffins are disc-like because they bake in rings the whole time, whereas the griddled ones are more rounded and pillow-like because they’re baked partially in the rings or free-form (Model Bakery muffins).
The muffins were nice and crisp on the outside and crackled when I bit into them. The inside was fluffy. I didn’t love them plain, even when fresh. I preferred them with some butter and salt. I’m still undecided as to whether I like baked or griddled. I may need to try a few more times each way before making a decision.
Since this is my first attempt at a recipe from the Breads chapter of the book, I wanted to share a few notes.
Starter:
I’ve never made a starter before and to be honest, it’s not one of my favorite things. This one required four days of twice daily feedings which seemed like a lot of work for one recipe. I know you can save it for other things (and I did for the pretzels) but it was messy and my fridge was getting filled up with buckets of “throw away” starter because I didn’t want to clog my sink drain.
Day 1 : The starter doubled in size and had a very unpleasant smell
Day 2 to 4 : The starter only increased approximately 10% but I knew it was still active because there were bubbles
Day 5 : I didn’t have time to use the starter so I put it in the fridge and had to re-activate it.
Equipment:
I didn’t use a pizza stone because my oven is unusually hot, especially on the bottom, which works out nicely for bread-making. I also didn’t have a spray bottle. I know having that steam really helps but I have to say, they were pretty tasty without the proper bread-making environment.
Pretzels are next!