English Muffin Bread

English Muffin Bread with an open crumb to capture butter and jam!

Ingredients

1 pkg. fast-rising yeast 

3 cups all-purpose flour  

2 Tbs. brown sugar 

1 tsp. salt 

¼ tsp. baking soda

1 cup milk  

¾  cup water 

cornmeal 

In a medium size bowl, combine yeast, flour, sugar, salt, and soda. Combine milk and water and heat to 120 to 130 degrees F.   Pour into dry mixture and beat well for about 5 minutes by hand, 2 or 3 by mixer on medium speed---it will make a slightly stiff batter.

Allow batter to rest for 10 minutes.  

Coat the inside of a large loaf pan (9" x 5" x 3") with cooking spray and sprinkle with cornmeal. Spoon batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle cornmeal lightly over the top of the batter.  Cover with a light towel and let rise in warm place for 20 to 30 minutes, or until batter nearly reaches the top of the pan.

Bake at 400 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes---if  the top of the loaf begins to brown too quickly, cover them lightly with aluminum foil. Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack completely before serving. 

Notes

There are a lot of versions of this recipe out there, as English muffin bread seems to be quite popular in many bed and breakfast inns.  Bread machine and microwave versions abound, but a lot of the recipes I’ve seen in cookbooks or on the Internet seem almost indistinguishable from ordinary white bread, and some have way too much salt.   I think you’ll enjoy this version, which is fast and easy, and develops the lovely large holes which catch melted butter and jam so well.

One version of the recipe to avoid in particular: the one published by Fleischmann's Yeast as a magazine ad back in 2000.  It contained a typo which caused the dough to be too liquid and to overflow the pans! We got a lot of mail about that, believe me, and since I proofed the copy, I was as much at fault as anyone.

I also like to make this bread in round stoneware crocks or in canape molds (see photos below). For the crocks I divide the dough in two and bake it for 35-40 minutes. Canape molds take about 10 ounces of dough each and bake for 35 minutes (they take longer than you night think because the dough is enclosed.) If you want to test with an instant read thermometer, I like to bake English Muffin bread to 200 degrees F. because the dough is so wet to begin with.

For this batchI replaced one cup of AP flour with a multigrain mix of whole wheat, oats and cornmeal.

English Muffin Bread toasts beautifully and is exquisite with my brother-in-law's homemade preserves.