Breakfast Club - English Muffins and Lemon Curd

This mornings Breakfast Club was closer to Brunch by the time I managed to get my act together! I've been wanting to try and make some English Muffins for a while now, for some reason they always seem to be a bit of a challenge, especially first thing in the morning. But it seems that so many bloggers have already tried them and all have reported about how fantastic they are and so easy to make to boot that I decided to give it a go. I was quite pleased with how they turned out as well that I now throw my hat into the ring as well and declare that once you have tasted homemade English Muffins you will never resort to the shop bought variety ever again.

I surfed around quite a bit to find a recipe I was happy with, there are loads out there! But I finally settled on the one that Jules made over at Domestic Goddess In Training. (This blog is totally responsible for me first of getting into blogs and then setting up my own ~ boy does Jules have a lot to answer for lol).

English Muffins

110ml milk

25ml water

Large pinch of sugar

1 tsp dried yeast

225g strong white flour

Pinch of salt

Polenta for dusting

Heat milk, water and sugar into a saucepan until hand hot. Stir in yeast and leave for 15 mins to allow a froth to develop on the top.

In a large bowl pour yeast mixture into flour and salt and mix until you have a dough. Knead dough for 10 mins by hand until you have a soft elastic dough. Place in an oiled bowl and cover with clingfilm. Leave in a warm place to rise for an hour.

Knock back dough then roll out until about 1cm thick. Using an 8cm cutter cut out rounds and place on a baking sheet that has been sprinkled with a small amount of polenta. Once all of the rounds have been cut dust the top of the dough with more polenta. Cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm place for 30 mins.

Heat a heavy based frying pan to low/med. (You'll need to grease the surface if its not a non stick pan). Cook the muffins in batches for 7 mins each side. While cooking the rest of the muffins place the cooked ones under a tea towel to keep warm.

Makes 8

The only thing I would try and do differently next time is maybe make the dough up as far as the polenta stage and then pop them in the fridge overnight. Then the next morning all I would need to do is take them out of the fridge and let them come back to room temp before cooking, not sure if that would effect the texture or quality in any way but I figure its worth a shot. Oh - and I'm going to try and buy an 8cm cutter too, I had a choice of a 78mm or an 86mm cutter, the piggy side of me opted for the bigger one which resulted in only 5 muffins, which worked out to be just enough for Hubby and I but not enough should visitors be here too.

The warm muffins were served with curd, passionfruit in my case and lemon for Hubby. Hubby has a bit of an obsession with Lemon Curd and tends to get distraught when he discovers the jar is empty, I'm learning that at all times there needs to be a lemon curd supply for him! I'm not sure what possessed me to try making lemon curd for the first time, I'd never ever tasted it before and all written material on the matter lead me to believe that it was incredibly difficult to make. Then I discovered a recipe in the back of Rachel Allen's 'Bake' which didn't strike me as being all that bad. Coincidentally at around the same time one of Nigel Slater's articles was published all about lemon curd and the one tip I took from it was to use a double boiler, that way the mixture has a defused heat source which reduces the risk of it turning into scrambled eggs with a hint of lemon thrown in! I've made this at least 100 times since and its never let me down.

Lemon Curd

75g butter

150 caster sugar

Finely grated zest and juice of 3 lemons

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

Place the butter, sugar, lemon zest and juice in a heatproof bowl and suspended over a pan of simmering water and heat very gently until the butter is melted.

Put the eggs and egg yolk into a bowl and beat thoroughly (make sure all the eggs are whisked, any unwhisked bits will show up in the finished curd).

Pour the beaten eggs into the melted butter mixture and stir carefully over a low heat until the mixture has thickened and will coat the back of a spoon. (If the mixture does start to scramble quickly push it through a sieve). Remove the bowl from the heat and pour into a sterilised jar.

Makes 250ml

Rachel Allen's 'Bake'