These were sourdough English muffins.
It was my latest baking experiment with my sourdough starter. I adapted a
recipe from King Arther Flour, halving the amount of each ingredients. I thought 2 dozens would be too many. I also used unfed starter for convenience. The recipe said "fed will give you a more vigorous rise," but my dough with unfed showed a dramatic rise.
With a neat round shape and generous cornmeal dusting, they already looked like real English muffins.
The recipe said, for best shape, cook muffins for about 5 minutes on their first side; then lay a cake pan, cookie sheet, or similar flat (though not overly heavy) object atop them and continue cooking for 7 minutes or so, which helps keep muffins flat across the top (rather than domed). So I did so. That was a mistake; the muffin tops stuck to the pan. I tried to separate them from the pan gently but some dough left on the pan and the muffin tops were damaged. If I dusted the top with cornmeal generously, the accident might have not happened, I guess?
After cooking the damaged sides, they looked much better! I was relieved... From the second batch, I didn't use the pan and the muffins looked flat on both sides after all. In conclusion, such a pan weight is not necessary.
A few were pretty large. Shaping the remaining scraps of the dough by hand after first cutting created those monsters. Baking at home develops uniqueness. It's often funny like this case.
Next day, we enjoyed some toasted English muffins with butter spread (and marmalade for me).
They were pretty tasty with a hint of sourdough flavor and had a nice chewy texture. The day after, J made English muffin sandwiches with bacon,
Port Salut (I think... it was soft mild cheese with orange rind that J picked up at Wegmans.), grilled tomatoes, and soft poached eggs for us. Yummy!
After we were spoiled by them, we can't go back to store-bought English muffins anymore!
