Happy Wednesday everyone! I was going to post a delicious fall-y recipe this week, but it’s not ready yet. Instead you get this slightly fall-y recipe in celebration of the first day of fall tomorrow. I don’t know about you, but I plan to make my pumpkin chocolate chip cookies tomorrow, as per tradition. I’m very excited about it (I’m going to update the pictures tomorrow as well!). Today, thought, I’m excited to share this recipe for whole wheat cinnamon raisin english muffins.
My dietitian keeps bugging me about eating breakfast and adding a grain to my meals and blah blah blah, so I got these english muffins in my life. They’re delicious and since they’re 100% whole wheat, they’re basically healthy. I gave a bag of these to one of my friends and the cinnamon scent lingered around it all day. They’re the perfect balance of light, fluffy, cinnamon, and sweet.
These whole wheat cinnamon raisin english muffins aren’t hard to make, they’re just a little time consuming. Unfortunately not all of that is passive time like with most breads, but a lot of it is. You also only have to knead the dough for 5 minutes instead of 10. And since I didn’t want to waste any dough, I found it was easier and less time consuming to just divide the dough into 12 pieces straight off and roll those. They’re not as pretty and perfect as cookie cutter muffins, but they’re just delicious!
They don’t rise perfectly evenly all the way around when you roll out individual balls but I think that’s alright.
Then you cook them on a skillet in batches. I recommend using a large skillet, or even multiple skillets because they need to cook 6-7 minutes per side on a nice low heat. That’s 14 minutes a batch. I ended up doing 3 or 4 batches so cooking took me forever.
These were worth the wait though. They stayed good in an old bread bag on the counter for 2 weeks and were a delicious edition to my meal plan every day. I hope you enjoy!
Ingredients
- 1 tsp active dry yeast
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 1/2 cup milk
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2-3 cups flour (white whole wheat, whole wheat, or all purpose if you don't want whole wheat)
- 1 tbsp vital wheat gluten (exclude if you're not using all whole wheat flour)
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
- 1 cup raisins
- 1/4 cup cornmeal (optional)
Instructions
- In a liquid measuring cup or bowl, combine the warm water, yeast and sugar. Allow the mixture to sit for 5 minutes until it becomes frothy. If the mixture doesn't foam, repeat with new yeast.
- In a small bowl melt the butter in the microwave then combine with milk.
- In a large mixing bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cup flour, wheat gluten, salt, cinnamon and raisins. Add both the liquids and mix. It will be very wet.
- 1/4 cup at a time, add in flour until a soft, slightly sticky ball forms (I only needed 1/2 - 3/4 cup more). Then knead for 5, using as little flour on your kneading surface as you can.
- Shape the dough into a ball and allow to rise in a covered, greased bowl until doubled in size (about an hour)
- Punch down the dough and either divide it into 12 equal size balls and roll each ball 3/4 of an inch thick individually, or roll whole ball of dough 3/4 of an inch thick and using a large round glass, a can, a biscuit or cookie cutter, punch out rounds, rerolling the dough as you use up space.
- Place each shaped ball on a baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal (optional) and cover loosely. Allow them to double in size (about an hour)
- Heat a large pan/skillet over medium-low heat grease it with butter, oil or non-stick spray. Carefully move the muffins with a spatula. Cook the muffins in batches until golden and crispy on each side, 6-7 minutes per side. Make sure the heat is low enough that you can cook each side for 6-7 minutes without burning.
- Transfer to a wire rack for cooling and eat with butter, honey, cream cheese, peanut butter whatever!
Notes
Adapted from budgetbytes
