Sourdough English Muffins - Simple Overnight Recipe
These delicious sourdough english muffins are simple and easy to mix up the night before and cook in time for breakfast the next morning. They are delicious with eggs and sausage, or some homemade jam for breakfast, and they even make great sandwiches for lunch.
Ingredients
- 1 cup sourdough starter
- 1 cup milk or water
- 1 teaspoon honey or sugar
- 2 ½ cup flour
- 2 tablespoon butter
- 2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- In a large bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment, combine all the ingredients except for the cornmeal.
- Mix until combined, cover with plastic wrap, beeswax wrap or an airtight cover and allow it to sit out at room temperature 8-12 hours or overnight for bulk fermentation.
- In the morning, add a sprinkling of cornmeal to your baking sheet. Add just a dusting of flour to the top of the dough and your hands. Divide the dough into equal pieces and shape into flat discs using your hands. This is very similar to shaping buns (see video).
- Let the dough rise for 2 more hours or until puffed up. This also helps to further develop the delicious sour flavor. (If you need to skip this rise time, just add 1 teaspoon of baking soda to your dough before shaping.)
- Pre-heat your cast iron skillet over a medium heat. You can add a little butter to the skillet if you’d like.
- Using a spatula, gently scoop up the english muffins and drop them onto the cast iron skillet. Allow them to cook slowly over several minutes on the first, checking the bottom to make sure they don’t get too brown. I oftentimes will turn the stove down to a medium-low heat and let them cook even slower after they first puff up.
- Flip the muffins over part way through cooking and allow them to cook on the second side until golden brown. It usually takes 8 to 10 minutes for the muffins to be completely done on the inside.
- When muffins are done cooking, use a fork to split them open and enjoy.
- Store leftover english muffins in an airtight container for up to one week, or freeze for up to three months
Notes
- To make sourdough discard english muffins, just add 1 teaspoon of baking soda to the dough to help them rise.
- For best results, allow the dough to rise after shaping for another couple of hours before cooking. If you need to cook these english muffins sooner, you can add 1 teaspoon of baking soda to the dough and then cook them right away.
- You can mix up this dough in your mixer or by hand. Usually if my mixer bowl is handy, I just mix it up in there, but I’ve also done it by hand many times.
- I usually just flour my hands, and shape these english muffins by hand, tucking the dough under into sort of a bun shape. You can roll them out and cut them out with a biscuit cutter if you’d like, but I don’t find that extra step necessary.
- I like to shape these english muffins about 6 a.m. and then bake them around 8 a.m. in time for breakfast.
- Place cornmeal on the baking sheet before allowing these muffins to do their final rise. This will keep them from sticking to the pan.
- Make sure your cast iron skillet is pre-heated before cooking these muffins so they don’t stick.
- Use a fork to split these muffins apart, that will allow you to see the nice big holes in the middle of the muffins that can sometimes get smashed when you cut them open with a knife.
- These homemade english muffins freeze well, so feel free to make a big batch.
