English Muffins, At Last!

As promised, here is the recipe for English Muffins. It's from The New Betty Crocker Cookbook and while it's time-consuming, it's pretty easy to do.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups warm milk
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 2 Tbsp granulated sugar
• 4 1/2 tsp (2 packets) active dry yeast
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 5 cups all-purpose flour (plus a little more for kneading)
• cornmeal

How it's Done:

1. Proof your yeast. In your mixing bowl, combine warm milk, sugar, butter, and yeast. Let it sit, undisturbed, for ten minutes. It should double in volume. If it does, proceed. If it does not, throw it out and go get some fresh yeast.
2. Stir in salt and flour.
3. Knead 6 to 8 minutes until smooth and elastic.
4. Coat with oil. Place in a large bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled in size, about 60 minutes.
5. Punch down. Turn dough out onto a floured countertop. Cover it and let it rest 10 minutes.
6. Roll to 1/2" thickness. Using a 4" biscuit cutter (or, ahem, the can that used to hold a whole lot of chickpeas, which you removed both ends from and washed), cut circles.
7. Lightly moisten each side and dip both sides in cornmeal. Continue until all circles (you should end up with 12) are coated. Cover them and let them double in size in a warm place. This will take about 30 minutes.

8. Now it's time to cook the muffins. On a dry griddle heated to 325 degrees (or medium), cook a few at a time, turning every 5 minutes, for about 30 minutes. Store the rest of the uncooked muffins in the fridge while you cook a batch.

9. When you're ready to serve them, split them with a fork, not a knife. Fork-splitting gives them the nooks and crannies.
10. Be prepared to never want Thomas's again...despite the long hours involved. Yum.