English Common Muffins
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sponge
Mix flour, water, and yeast together until smooth, ensuring no lumps.
Set the mixture in a warm place to rise for about 3 hours.
Beat the sponge thoroughly with a spoon or paddle, then let it rise again.
Cook the muffins
Set tin rings on a griddle and fill them halfway with batter.
Bake until the bottom is light brown, then flip and bake the other side.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the muffins their structure.
- Yeast
- Produces gas during the long rise, making the muffins light and airy.
The step that matters
Beat the sponge thoroughly before its second rise. Beating knocks out large gas bubbles and spreads the yeast evenly through the batter, so the second rise produces a uniform, open crumb rather than large holes or dense patches.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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