English Muffins

Sometimes breakfast can get a bit dull - people seem to turn to the same stiff toast with a scraping of margarine or a bowl of tasteless unappealing cereal. Even though it's early in the morning, I love experimenting with breakfast and coming up with yummy meals to set me up for the rest of the day.

These muffins can be used in place of toast or bread for breakfast for a much more satisfying and pleasant meal. The muffins can be made in advance and frozen so you can grab one whenever you feel like it. The topping you can see on these muffins is a mixture of cream cheese, dried cranberries and poppy seeds - heaven.

This recipe yields ten English muffins.

Ingredients

1tsp active dry yeast

2 tbsp sugar

125ml warm water

125ml milk

2 tbsp butter

400g flour

Pinch salt

32g cornmeal

Recipe

1. Mix together the yeast, sugar and warm water. Leave for around 5 minutes until dissolved.

2. Combine half the hour and all the salt in a bowl and mix. Separately, heat the butter and milk together until the butter is melted.

3. Pour the yeast mixture and the milk mixture into the flour and stir until well combined. Gently add the rest of the flour and mix until the dough becomes a soft, sticky ball.

4. Knead the dough for five minutes on a lightly floured surface, add as little flour as possible to ensure soft muffins. Shape the dough into a ball and place it in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover the plastic wrap and leave for an hour until doubled in size.

5. Punch the dough down, shape it into another bowl and leave it to rise for another hour until doubled in size again.

6. Punch down the dough for a second time and, with a rolling pin, roll out onto a lightly floured surface until around 2cm thick. Using a round cutter, cut the dough into circles.

7. Place the circles onto a baking tray sprinkled with cornmeal. Sprinkle more cornmeal on top of the muffins. Cover loosely with a towel and let rise for another hour.

8. Heat a large frying pan over a low heat and carefully transfer the muffins into the pan with a spatula. Cook the muffins until golden brown and crispy on each side. Let the muffins cool on a wire rack, then toast before eating.