Gram’s English Muffin Bread

Gram’s English Muffin Bread

Here's another bread recipe for my business associate. I plan on dropping those cookbooks off for her next wee. 

This one is an old recipe and I don't know if my grandmother came up with it on her own, or she got it from a book. I inherited most of her cookbooks, some from back in the pre-war era. She had some good ones. I got this off of one of her hand written notes.

I swiped more than a few recipes from Gram!

As you probably know by now, I love camping in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and I go up there every chance I can. While I’m camping, most of the bread I consume is in the form of english muffins. I like them for egg sandwiches, but mostly I toast them over a charcoal grill and butter them. Buttered english muffins are a good thing. Maybe it is that ‘every nook and cranny thing’.

Now, you don't have to go running out to the store to purchase some. You can make your own english muffin bread instead. Don’t give me that look! It is not hard at all. This recipe makes a bread that has a similar texture and flavor. 

Now, normally I frown upon using bread pans. I prefer free form loaves. In this recipe, however, you can use one of those bread pans and I won’t holler at you. 

4 cups of unbleached flour

2 tbs. of molasses

1 tbs. of olive oil

1 tbs. salt

1/3 tsp. of baking soda

2 tbs. instant yeast

2 cups of water, more or less

Cornmeal

Preparation

Place the first six ingredients in your mixing bowl. Don’t bother measuring the molasses. That’s too messy. Just guess. Add one cup of the slightly warm water to the bowl and start mixing with the dough hooks. You want this dough to be a little wetter than normal bread dough so you want to add a little more water than usual. Once you do, sprinkle a little flour on it until you can just handle it with floured hands. Knead it a little bit, flour it lightly and let it rise for about a half hour. 

Knead it again with floured hands and place it into your bread pan that has been greased or sprayed with one of those cooking sprays that are named after Pamela. Before you add the dough, sprinkle the bread pan with some corn meal. Push the dough down so that it spreads out in the pan. Generously sprinkle corn meal all over the top of the loaf and pat it in with your fingers. Let it rise for another half hour. Bake at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes. Remove the loaf from the bread pan and allow it to cool 10 minutes on a rack before slicing.

Serving

If you want to reproduce that camping taste, toast the english muffin bread over a charcoal grill. With breakfast, serve this sliced and toasted spread with some butter and jam. I think it would go perfectly next to a plate of bacon, eggs and fried potatoes, but that’s just me. If you go that route, a little crisp brute champagne can’t hurt.