Once you've tasted light and fluffy, homemade Vegan English Muffins you'll never eat store bought again. Get the recipe below.
What makes a muffin an English muffin?
Today I'm sharing with you my recipe for an English Muffin that has been made suitable for a plant based diet. (You'll see how I've made it vegan further down this post).
But first of all let's talk about the English Muffin, what it is and why you should definitely be making your own at home.
An English muffin is a type of yeasted bread that is round in shape and flat on the top and bottom. It's perfect split in half and toasted.
The internet would lead you to believe that the English Muffin doesn't come from England at all. Rather it was invented by a man who had moved from England to the United States. The innovation was to use a griddle to bake the muffin, rather than an oven, resulting in something that was crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.
It might be an unusual method but it is what gives the English Muffin its signature texture which we all know and love today.
Now it may be true that the English Muffin was introduced to America by a British ex-pat but have you heard the song about "the muffin man", who lives down Drury Lane? Well his muffins were...English Muffins! But no need to specify they are English when you're in England...
How to make English Muffins suitable for vegans
Regardless of where English Muffins actually come from they aren't usually vegan.
English Muffins are made from an "enriched dough" which means instead of just flour, yeast and water, they have richer ingredients added to the flour like eggs, butter, milk and sugar.
Because English Muffins traditionally use butter, milk and sugar (but no eggs) in their dough, we need to make a few substitutes to make them suitable for vegans.
First of all we need to substitute the butter. This gives the bread a really buttery, rich flavour. All we need to do here is substitute butter for a vegan butter or margarine. I prefer to use a vegan butter as that has the flavour we're looking for. Flora and Naturli are the most buttery in my opinion.
Next we need to substitute the milk. In my recipe I use soy milk as out of all the plant milks it is the one that resembles cows milk most closely. You can however use a nut milk, or oat milk, whichever you'd prefer. The flavour will probably be a little lighter and less rich but it shouldn't affect the texture.
And that's it. Two substitutes and you English Muffins will be suitable for anyone following a plant based diet.
How to make an English Muffin
If you're familiar with baking bread in general then this will be an easy recipe to follow. You need to take the following steps:
- Mix together the dry ingredients
- Heat together the wet ingredients (making sure the butter is melted). You don't want it too hot or it will kill the yeast. Warm is better than hot.
- Mix together the wet and dry ingredients to form a dough.
- Knead until smooth and elastic.
- Leave to prove until doubled in size.
- Roll out the dough and cut out each muffin.
- Leave to prove again
- Griddle.
- Serve!
It's incredibly simple but does take some time and patience due to the 2.5 hours of proving time. While that's happening you can start thinking about what toppings you're going to pile on top once they are baked. They are perfect when eaten fresh out of the pan.
The recipe
Vegan English Muffins
Equipment
- 1 Mixing bowl
- 1 9 cm straight sided cookie cutter
- 2 Baking trays
- 1 hot plate or heavy based frying pan
Ingredients
- 400 g strong white bread flour plus extra for dusting
- 7 g fast-action yeast
- 5 g salt
- 15 g caster sugar
- 200 ml soy milk
- 15 g vegan butter
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 15 g polenta or semolina
Instructions
- Sift your flour into a large mixing bowl then add the yeast and salt to either side of the bowl (you don't want them to touch).
- Warm the soy milk and melt the vegan butter, mix well to combine.
- Pour the milk and butter mixture into the flour then bring together into a soft dough.
- Turn the mixture out of the bowl onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes, or until soft, smooth and elastic. You could also do this in a mixer using dough hooks.
- Place the dough back into the bowl and cover. Leave to prove for an hour or until doubled in size.
- When the dough is ready, dust your work surface with polenta and flour.
- Turn the dough out and roll it until it's roughly 2.5 cm thick.
- Using a 9 cm straight-sided cutter, cut out eight muffins.
- Dust two baking trays with more polenta / flour.
- Place the muffins on to the baking trays ensuring plenty of room for them to grow.
- Sprinkle over a little more polenta / flour and leave to prove for another 30 minutes.
- Preheat the hot plate or a heavy-based frying pan on the hob to a very low heat.
- Griddle the muffins for approximately 5-8 minutes, then flip over and griddle for another 5-8 minutes on the other side.
Nutrition
How to eat an English Muffin
English Muffins are best cut in half, toasted and then slathered with butter. They are also great when toppings like spinach, mushrooms, scrambled tofu and more are piled high! Here are a couple of my recipes that use English Muffins as the base.
More breakfast recipes
For more inspiration check out my breakfast recipe archive.
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