amolitor's blog

I make English Muffins from time to time. Here's my latest, and some discussion.

First: I made English Muffins with dough, not batter. Usually, I use sourdough. Second: I consider english muffins to be a cooking technique (cook on a hot, dry iron skillet dusted with cornmeal) and not really a recipe. You can use pretty much any dough you like, as near as I can tell.

As you probably know, there's a technique for improving bread which involves adding some quantity of "old dough" to the new dough. Some dough from the last batch, that's 6 or 12 or 4 hours old, or something. While this is great for commercial bakers, it's a little bit less great for the home baker. Here's what I've started doing:

My wife likes oatmeal and things made with oatmeal, so she requested a bread made with oatmeal. This is the result:

bouillie

• 1/4 cup oatmeal (would have used more, but that's all we had)
• 1/4 Bob's Red Mill 7 grain hot cereal
• 1/4 cup barley flour
• 1 cup boiling water

Mix, let stand overnight, covered.

poolish

This is my FIRST EVER purchase of equipment specifically for breadmaking. I am very excited:

25c each. They work great!

I'm working on this recipe.

My current state of the art is:

Evening of Day 0

• 1/4 cup WW flour
• 3 T water
• 1 T WW starter

(this approximates 100% hydration starter mix). Let rise overnight.

Morning of Day 1

I gave this recipe a try over the last couple of days. Here is my report!

First of all, OF COURSE I had to tinker with it. I cut it in half, and converted to rough volumetric measurements.

• 1/4 cup cracked wheat, well toasted in
• 1/4 cup water just off the boil

soak soak soak

I have posted this recipe, more or less, elsewhere, but I am recording it in my blog for posterity, with some updates to my process and my thinking:

Again, this isn't a recipe for the baker who prefers precise measurements!

This isn't a recipe, nor is it instructions to anyone other than me, it's just a statement of where I am right now in terms of baking bread. Some will be appalled, others might be inspired. Most probably won't care!

This is my imitation of Acme Bakery's walnut levain. It's based on the Mixed Starter bread recipe in Baking With Julia. If you're not comfortable working with doughs by feel, if you really prefer to weigh ingredients, this recipe will not be helpful to you.

First starter: