For Gutsy Cooks Club this week our assignment was to make 2 things that NEVER, EVER would I dream of making: homemade English Muffins & Eggs Benedict. First, who knew you could make your own English muffins. Obviously kidding, but really even though we eat them on a very regular basis I never imagined making them since bread & baking were involved. But guess what.... there is no baking involved really! And second before tonight I personally had never eaten nor made eggs Benedict having hated any runny type of egg product before August of 2010. So maybe not for the other Gutsy Cooks but this week was actually definitely more on the gutsy side for me.
We actually made this as dinner which was definitely pushing it but commitments are commitments and our weekend was far too hectic for any fancy breakfast making last weekend so dinner was the only way this was going to happen.
G was getting ready to fly out to a conference in San Francisco so this was his going away meal so to say and his only involvement was in eating it not making it.
First I gathered the ingredients to make the English muffins which there weren't a ton of which made the process a little less intimidating.
I mixed the dough in the bowl and once sticky kneaded in flour for exactly 8 minutes as that's what the Illustrated Kitchen Bible called for and being afraid of making a bread product I was going to follow the directions exactly as called for. It came out as I hoped it would. Then it needed to rest & rise for an hour. We went for a walk to get a little exercise.
When we got back I was a bit worried because the dough hadn't doubled in size as it said that it would ( I think my rising spot might not of been warm enough) but I went forth anyway and kneaded it more and divided into 10 small disc and let rise on semolina for another 20 minutes.
While waiting for the second rise we opened a bottle of Savoureux Pinot Gris from Oregon and I went on YouTube to find a demo on poaching eggs because it'd been awhile since I first did it and I referred to the YouTube video the first time as well.
Finally the muffins were ready to go in the pan.
Since it was our dinner I decided to make a spinach salad with a little chopped red onion, sliced strawberries, almonds and a raspberry vinaigrette.
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| I was very happy when they turned out to look almost like store bought muffins |
What a tasty breakfast for dinner dish this turned out to be actually. Can't believe I really never had this classic dish before. But so glad I have now.
Pretty sure we'll be having it again soon!
Tammy... this was a first for me and it will not be the last either... the homemade muffins kick the supermarket muffins butt!
ReplyDeleteA tip on the rising (learn due to the change of temperature in Florida)... Before I start any project that needs to rise, I turn my oven to 170, and let it warm up a bit, then I turn it off and leave the light on. This created the perfect 70 degree that the yeast needs to do it's thing. So far every time I have used this technique, the dough rises beautifully as the recipe calls for it.
I also heard that if you sprinkle the oven with a bit of water, it creates another perfect environment for yeast.
I keep my yeast in the refrigerator, but before I use it, I bring it to room temperature, which helps the yeast bubble up when you mix in the tepid liquid, which should always be below 120 degrees. Anything more than that you kill it and the dough will never rise at all (I learn the hard way)
There are more recipes with yeast coming, so you will have time to try it out :)