How To Make Sourdough English Muffins

by jessicaherbig | Aug 5, 2022 | Recipes

How To Make Sourdough English Muffins

how to make sourdough english muffins

DONT! Just kidding. They take a few hours, but most of it is hands off time while the sourdough works it’s magic. I hate going through a whole life story before I get to a recipe, so just look below, and be blessed. We love these and the kids eat them as breakfast sandwiches with eggs fresh from our chickens and cheddar that I make myself.

Foolproof Sourdough English Muffin Recipe
makes 16 English muffins

1 cup active sourdough starter (100% hydration) – I feed mine by weight equal parts water and flour, but over time I’ve learned that approx. 1/2 C. Flour + 1/3 C. Water will give me a good mix to give me bubbly sourdough starter in 2-3 hrs, and I’ve never weighed it since. Measure with your heart. I keep my sourdough start in these amazing Weck Jars. They’re easy to clean and keep your starter nice and neat.
3/4 cup warm water
1 cup whole milk, warmed to 110F (Because I don’t measure anything, I stick my finger in it. if it feels warm after 10 seconds without burning me, it’s good. Also.. I just milked a cow for the first time, and the temp of the milk fresh outta Dixie Queen seemed the perfect temp to me.)
5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ cup honey
¼ cup vegetable oil (but I always use avocado or olive oil)
2 teaspoons salt
cornmeal

Combine your starter, warm milk and water, and just shy of half the flour. Mix up and let sit for 30 minutes. This helps the sourdough activate. (Holy Spirit activate!)

Add the honey, oil and salt and mix in.

Add in the rest of the flour and knead with a dough hook until it clears the bowl. It will be stiff. That’s ok. Trust the process. My Kitchenaid comes in really handy for this.

Turn into an oiled bowl and let sit for 30 minutes. Then, you’re going to stretch the dough. Lift one side of the dough up and onto the middle of the dough. Do this for all 4 sides of the dough and re-cover it and let rest.

After 30 min, do it again.

After 60 min, do it again.

After 60 min, do it one more time. It should now be light, stretchy, and smelling like yeasty goodness. Turn out onto a clean surface and give it a few kneads. Not a lot, just show it who’s boss. If it’s not yet light and airy, let it sit for another hour or so.

Roll out into a 1/2 inch sheet, and use a 3 inch cookie cutter to cut circles. Re-roll scraps until you’ve used all the dough. Do you see the top right bitty biscuit I have on the pan? That was the last of my scrap dough, and it only made a 1.5 inch round. I used that as my tester for doneness.

Place rounds on an ungreased baking sheet and let sit, covered until poofy (about 60 min. It’s super important to get it to 1/2 inch, because these things poof up so far it’s hard to get them baked on your cast iron if they’re too thick without burning the outsides.)

Heat a cast iron skillet or griddle over medium heat. I use a Lodge Cast Iron Griddle, because I’ve found that the Lodge Brand has a finer, smoother finish than other brands of cast iron, so it keeps a wonderful non stick surface that needs very little maintenance. Dip each round in cornmeal or lightly sprinkle, place in pan, and “bake” on your stovetop for approx 8 minutes per side. TA-DA!

Written by Jessica

Crushing That Good Life one weekend at a time.

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An Intro to Cheesemaking

by jessicaherbig | Aug 5, 2022 | Recipes

An Intro to Cheesemaking

An Intro To CheeseMaking

History of Cheese

If you think about it, people have been making cheese forever…. back when they didn’t even know why their milk turned chunky and delicious when they poured it into animal skin carrying bags. When you look at it that way, it makes modern day cheesemaking a little more accessible.

As you know… my style of cooking in general is “Measure with your heart.” Cheesemaking has come a long way in terms of there now being a standard process to provide consistent results, but there is still room in cheesemaking to measure with your heart!

The first cheeses were discovered because some traveler was carrying his lunch of fresh milk in an animal skin bag. In my head I imagine this traveler with animal skin clothes, riding on a camel, somewhere hot. (Hot because cheddars culture at approximately 90 degrees). When he stopped for lunch, he discovered that his delicious fresh milk was chunky… I’m betting he didn’t drink it. Or maybe he was hungry and rolled the dice. I don’t know. The point is, sometimes there are very delicious accidents. The milk cultured because the inside of that animal skin had rennet in it. When you mix fresh milk, rennet, and either a thermophilic or mesophilic starter culture, you get delicious magic.

Don’t get me wrong, cheesemaking is an art. The subtleties of each variety and the different aging techniques and times, as well as all the various types of milks you can use to make cheese lead to as many varieties as people on this earth. What I’ve found is that I’m an impatient cheesemaker. I tend towards cheeses with short aging times so I can enjoy the fruits of my labors faster. Farmhouse cheddar is my go-to, though I do make fresh cheeses as well. (Ones that don’t require aging like ricotta and cream cheese)

Below I’m going to outline my process for cheesemaking, but please keep in mind that I’m still learning along with everyone else. I like things as simple as possible, so you might not agree with my shortcuts and that’s ok. This is what works for me.

Supplies

The freshest milk you can buy. (I prefer raw from local dairies whenever possible but have been known to buy whole milk from the grocery store as well.) Just don’t buy super-pasteurized or it won’t work out well.
Rennet (I get this delivered from Amazon. Bonus points if you can find a local cheese shop to support.)
Starter Culture. It will differ based on the cheese you want to make, but for a general Cheddar, get a Mesophilic Starter Like This One.
Big metal pot. I use a Pasta Strainer pot like this one. The strainer portion is great for putting the curds in to drain right back into the pot during one of the steps.
A long knife to cut the curds. It needs to be long enough to reach top to bottom in your pan for as much milk as you’re going to put in the pot. (Did that make sense? Just get a long one. Bread or carving knives work great.)
Cheese press – This one is important to get right. If your press is too small you’ll only be able to handle a gallon of milk at a time and end up with a bunch of 1 lb wheels. That’s not exactly a bad thing but it takes awhile to make cheese, but it takes the same amount of time to make 1 lb as it does to make 5… so in this case as big as you can handle is good. I got this press as a starter kit with cheesecloth and I wish I would have gone bigger. I’ll be upgrading my size very soon.
Dairy thermometer (like the one your barista uses at your favorite coffee shop)

OK – so that’s the basic supplies. You need milk, a pan to put it in, a way to take the temperature and cut it, something to press it into to hold it’s shape.

The hands on portion of cheesemaking is very little. It’s a lot of “hurry and wait” steps. You heat up your milk, add the rennet, wait, then add your mesophilic culture and wait. Then cut the curds and wait, Then stir and wait and stir and wait and stir. Then you drain the curds and wait. Then press the curds and wait. See what I mean? A lot of waiting. You can totally fit this in if you’re planning on being in the kitchen during the day doing other things.

I was a little stressed at all the instructions in the book I bought with cheesemaking recipes. But I’ve realized that they’re more like guidelines. If you don’t keep your cheese at exactly 90 degrees, and it falls below… you’ll still end up with cheese, and it’s not even going to suck. So just measure with your heart and keep working through the steps. You’ll end up with cheese, I promise!

Oh, do you want to check out the best cheesemaking recipe book I’ve seen yet? It’s got EVERYTHING in it. Just CLICK HERE. My favorite like I’ve said is the Farmhouse Cheddar.

UPDATE ON THE CHEESE PRESS. My friend lovingly had her husband make me a dutch cheese press out of oak. Never again will I ever use anything else. Though mine is handmade, it’s very similar to THIS ONE on Amazon. And it’s not a bad price.

Written by Jessica

Crushing That Good Life one weekend at a time.