"English Muffin" Bread

This is another of those loaves that I made with no intention of sharing on my blog. But I loved the end result so I thought I'd share. I had gone into the kitchen intending to make Sourdough English Muffins. However, my starter just wasn't bubbly. I had been having trouble with it - I think it's STILL punishing me for buying commercial yeast over a year ago. I had to put off the English muffins but I really needed to make something. Anything. I remembered seeing recipes for "English Muffin" Bread and quickly looked up a recipe.

Of course, I got distracted and some milk that I was only supposed to be scalding went a bit beyond the scalding stage and reduced a lot. I decided to just go with it anyway and didn't bother to add fresh milk to make up the rest. I loved how quickly this bread came together. The entire process took less than an hour and a half. The crumb was great and the flavour was good too. I snapped a crumb shot for a friend, ate several slices and then thought that I should share it here. Weeks later, I'm finally getting around to it.

I'll definitely make this again and will try adding various flavours to it. Garlic is always my first choice but we'll see what I decide on. Tomorrow I'll be sharing a really delicious sandwich that I made with it.

English Muffin Bread 

Ingredients

12.75 oz all purpose flour
1 tablespoon instant yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup milk
cornmeal for loaf pan

Directions

Grease a loaf pan and sprinkle bottom and sides with cornmeal.

Whisk together flour, yeast, sugar, salt, and baking soda. Heat milk and water to between 120F to 130 F. Pour over dry ingredients.

Beat at high speed for a minute then scoop into prepared loaf pan. Cover and proof at room temperature until dough has doubled. This could take about 45 minutes, depending on the temperature of the room.

Before the door has doubled, preheat oven to 400 F.

Bake the dough for 22-27 minutes or until it registers 190 F. Cool for 5 minutes then turn out onto a cooling rack. Allow to completely cool before slicing.

 Notes

• I adapted this from King Arthur's English Muffin Toasting Bread. They used more milk than I did. You can definitely do that or even use all milk. 

• The recipe is for an 8 1/2" x 4 1/2" loaf pan. However, I used a 9" x 5" pan without scaling the ingredients. I was fine with the size. However, you may want to use the smaller pan so you can have a taller loaf.