Sourdough English Muffins

I've been making these every weekend for a few months now and I think I've finally figured out how to handle the sticky dough and semolina flour. This recipe has quadrupled my nominal consumption of butter and jam.

This recipe calls for sourdough starter and requires proofing for eight hours or overnight. Like my other recipes you'll have to have captured your own yeast (you can follow the instructions here)

This recipe produces about 8 quickly vanishing muffins (depending on how big you make them). I would recommend doing 8 at a time until you get the hang of the dough and then doubling or tripling the recipe. They freeze well so once you know you won't mess them up you might as well make a sextuple batch and pack your freezer - they're that good.

Total Preparation Time

Total preparation is 10+ hours but most of this is just waiting for the yeast to work on your dough. Actual mixing and cooking time is < 1 hour.

5min Preparing the sponge
8+ hours waiting for the sponge to sour
10min doing the final mixing and shaping
35min waiting for the dough to rise
30min cooking (or whatever)

Ingredients

Sponge:

276g milk
110g starter
184g white flour
100g wheat flour

Final mixin before rise:

75g white flour
3/4tsp salt
1tsp baking soda
1.5tsp honey or 2.5tsp sugar
semolina flour (or I suppose corn meal would work)

Equipment

A scale with SI units
A bread mixer is nice
Something to proof the sponge in (I just use my mixing bowl)
A cookie pan and some parchment paper
A cup or glass to cut the muffins from the dough
A cast iron pan or skillet

Method

Mix the sponge ingredients and put it in a warm spot somewhere to sit overnight. Use a mixer if you've got it.
When you're ready to bake, mix in the final ingredients.
Put some parchment paper on a cookie sheet and grease it with butter.
Sprinkle the greased paper with a light sprinkling of semolina flour.
Lightly sprinkle your work surface with flour and coat your hands with cocain or flour, whichever you prefer.
Take the sticky dough out in one lump and give it a quick roll in the flour.
Roll or press it flat and start cutting out round shapes with your cup or glass.
Put the muffins on the parchment paper - leaving room for them to spread out.
Re-knead the scraps of leftover dough to make the last muffins.
Let this rise for 30 minutes.
Heat your skillet and lube it with some butter.
Cook them until they look like muffins.

Tips

When the dough is wet it's difficult to work with and I ruined many batches when the muffins stuck to the cookie sheet, each other, the parchment paper, the plastic bag I was putting the sheet in as a test, the scissors I used to cut the parchment paper, the counters, the wall, the sink, my bicycle, my fingers and my hair. Once the dough sticks to something it is impossible to remove cleanly and tends to deflate and stretch into thin spikes like a dead spider.

Through trial an error I discovered the best way to deal with this was to let them rise uncovered in a warm oven and then take them out and leave them on the counter while you get your pans hot. This should give them time to develop a dry surface and they should be much easier to pick up and put into the pan.

You'll have to experiment on how hot to get the pan - it's a very fine line between taking forever and burning.
Don't let the muffins rise for too long. The dough is fragile and will deflate if you leave it.

A 2X batch:

Sponge:

552g milk
220g starter
368g white flour
200g wheat flour

Final mixin before rise:

150g white flour
1.5 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp honey (or 1.5 tbsp sugar)

A Sextuple Batch

1656g milk
660g starter
1104g white flour
600g wheat flour

Final mixin before rise:

450g white flour
4.5 tsp salt
6 tbsp baking soda
3 tbsp honey (or 4.5 tbsp sugar)