Some of you might know that there’s already a muffin recipe on the blog. Nevertheless, I decided to revisit muffins in part because it is now ridiculously easy to get hold of fresh yeast, but also because a lot of muffin recipes and videos Out There™ are just plain wrong when it comes to the method of shaping them. There, I said it. Oh yes, there’s no holding me back when my dander is up.
Because there’s no need to go faffing about with rolling out the dough and using *in her best Lady Bracknell voice of disapproval* a pastry cutter. Apart from anything else, it ruins the iconic shape of the muffin (a flattened top and bottom with a smooth, soft and pale crust around the middle) with an ugly seam where the dough has been compressed as it was cut.
This recipe is adapted from one listed in Florence White’s Good Things in England and dates from 1826, and without being overly dramatic, eating them is like biting into a cloud. To keep them as soft as possible, I’ve used ordinary plain flour and used the whey from some curd cheese I made earlier this week as part of the mixing liquid, as it gives a beautifully soft crumb. Don’t worry about having to use whey, you can just make the mixture equal parts whole milk and water.
Fresh Yeast Muffins
Makes 14
560g plain flour
20g fresh yeast
1 tsp granulated sugar
1tsp salt
300ml whey + 150ml whole milk OR 225ml water + 225ml milk
cornflour for dusting
semolina for cooking (optional)
- Put the flour and salt into a bowl. I use my stand mixer fitted with a dough hook.
- Crumble the yeast into a small bowl and add the sugar. Work the sugar into the yeast then set aside for five minutes until it becomes liquid.
- Mix the whey and milk (or milk and water) in a small pan and warm gently to blood temperature.
- Pour the yeast into the milk mixture and then pour the whole into the flour.
- Mix thoroughly and knead for 10 minutes – five if using a dough hook.
- Cover and leave to rise for 1.5-2 hours.
- Deflate the dough, knead briefly, cover, and allow to rise for another 30 minutes.
- Sprinkle the work surface with cornflour. The dough is rather loose and prone to stickiness. The cornflour doesn’t stick to itself, and will therefore act as a non-stick layer between the dough and the work surface.
- Tip the dough out and divide it into 75g portions. This quantity of dough will, when risen and cooked, make the perfectly-sized muffin – 8-9cm across and 4cm thick. You can make them larger, but remember to adjust the cooking time accordingly.
- For each piece of dough, fold the edges in towards the middle, then turn over so that the folds are underneath and the top is smooth. Cup your hand over the dough and roll it in small circles, shaping the dough into a smooth ball. Set the ball on a cornflour-dusted surface to rise. Don’t put the balls of dough too close together, or they might rise into each other.
- Allow the dough to rise for 30 minutes from the moment the first ball of dough is shaped. They will take time to cook in batches, so with the staggered batch cooking, the last few will have risen just in time to be cooked.
- Put a heavy-based pan onto a large ring on a low heat.
- Cook the muffins in batches. Depending on the size of your pan, you can cook 4 or 5 at a time. Sprinkle the pan with semolina if you like, although if your pan is non-stick, this can be omitted.
- Gently slide a thin spatula under one of the risen balls of dough and transfer it to the pan turning it upside down as you do so, so that the top of the muffin cooks first. This will help create the perfect muffin shape, because the base of the dough is already flat and the top is rounded. If you cook the base first, the top continues to rise and curve, and the drying effect of the radiated heat from the pan will dry the surface of the dough and will make it ‘reluctant’ to flatten into the traditional muffin shape. Cooking the top first, the weight of the dough allows it to settle like a gently deflating cushion, into the flattened shape, and a partial hardening of the already flat bottom (which is currently the top) is fine.
- Cook for five minutes, then gently turn the muffins over and cook for another 5 minutes. When done, they should sound hollow when tapped.
- Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
- Wipe the pan free of semolina, then repeat until all the muffins are cooked.
To serve – very important
These instructions are adapted from Hannah Glasse, who insisted that no knife should touch muffins, as they would become heavy. Here is a guide to enjoying your fresh muffins.
You will need:
chilled butter cut into thin slices.
toppings such as jam, honey or sausage, egg and bacon, depending on degree of hunger.
- Whilst perfectly delicious soft pillows when freshly cooked, unless you are able to eat them hot from the pan, muffins should be toasted on the outside before being served. The insides are best left un-toasted, so you can bite down through the softness to the crunchy outside. The contrast is sensational.
- Grill for 2-3 minutes each side until the outsides have crisped, but not darkened.
- While the muffin is still warm, take a serrated knife – yes, I know Hannah said no to knives, but a little help is needed in order to divide the muffin. Take your knife and gently draw it around the side of the muffin like an equator, if you will – just breaking the soft crust to a depth of 1-2mm.
- Once the ‘skin’ (it really is too soft to be called a crust) has been scored all the way around, hold the muffin sideways and with the tips of your fingers, gently pull the muffin apart. The cutting will help it divide evenly into two halves.
- Quickly lay a slice of cold butter between the two halves and put them together again.
- Cover with a cloth to keep warm.
- After about a minute, turn each buttered muffin upside down, so that the now melted butter can seep into the other half of the muffin.
- Your muffin is now ready to be enjoyed as is, or to drizzle over the toppings of choice. Remember, do not spread your toppings, or the pressure will deflate your soft, billowy muffin.
Deja Food 