Sourdough English Muffins and Eggs Florentine

After perusing the various websites dedicated to the delights of Sourdough baking I stumbled across a recipe for English muffins.  Taken with how easy it seemed I decided to give them a try.  And, I am pleased to announce, they are very easy - And YUMMY.  I made them on saturday and then for sunday breakfast we had organic eggs florentine on organic sourdough muffins (minus the Hollandaise sauce due to Charmaine's state).  They were great, although would have scored higher with the addition of some freshly made Hollandaise!

After breakfast we lazed around the house for a bit before heading to Nippes, our old stomping ground, for the dual treats of flea market and Street Festival.  'Twas a great day,  capped of by a 30 min set by a very 'eurovision' singer with his two back up dancers, made all the better by the dancer who was every so slightly un-co and not all that sure of all the moves!  GOLD!

Anyway... as always, the RECIPE

courtesy of Susan at her great sourdough blog Wild Yeast.

It requires you to make a "sponge" which is a pre-ferment which gets everything going.

Ingredients for the sponge:

110g Ripe 100% hydration starter
160g Strong Flour
100g Wholemeal flour
276g Milk

Ingredients for the rest of the dough
75g Strong Flour
8g Salt
1 tsp Baking soda
1.5 tsp Honey
All of the sponge.

Method:

• Mix together all of the sponge ingredients until combined.
• Leave for 8 hours or overnight.
• Add remaining dough mixture and mix roughly to combine.
• Turn out onto bench and knead the dough for 7-10 minutes or until the gluten is well developed. The dough will be very sticky at first and will get slightly less so with kneading.  Please resist the urge to add more flour though.

• Flour your bench surface and hands really well and pat the dough out to a thickness of 1.5cm
• using a round cookie cutter with a diameter of 8cm cut out the muffins and transfer to baking paper sprinkled liberally with semolina flour.  Alternatively you could just use a knife or dough cutter and have them square.
• Cover with cling-wrap and leave to proof for an hour.

• With a pastry brush, lightly oil a heavy based fry-pan.  In batches, cook the muffins over medium heat for around 15 minutes, turning several times, until golden brown and the sides are firm.
• Cool on a wire rack.
• When splitting them for toasting, it is best to use a fork rather than a knife.  This creates lots of great nooks and crannys which will crisp up beautifully.

These muffins are great as they are, toasted with a bit of butter, or your favorite spread.  But are also fantastic as part of your favorite english muffin based breakfast!