Old Fashioned English Muffins

Out with the new, and in with the old! Old Fashioned that is. And our new old fashioned favorite is English Muffins! Jason made a batch of these last night so that I can make Eggs Benedict on Christmas morning. Well now he is going to have to make more because we can't stop eating them! They were the first thing on my mind this morning when we woke up, and we each ended up having two spread with some of our Vanilla Pear Butter. Last night we had them with organic butter from Spring Hill Cheese Co. and a bowl of our homemade Chicken Chili.

They are much better than any store bought muffin we've ever had AND we could have made 5 or 6 batches for the price of one package in the grocery store. These freeze exceptionally well, so you could easily double the batch and keep some in the freezer to have on hand whenever you need them.

Ingredient List:

1 cup milk
2 tablespoons sugar
1 package active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons if you're buying in bulk)
1 cup warm water (approx. 110 degrees F)
1/4 cup melted shortening
6 cups a.p. flour
1 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Warm the milk. Mix in sugar until dissolved. Let it cool. In a separate bowl, mix yeast and warm water. Let stand 10 minutes until foamy. Combine the two mixtures with the shortening and half of the flour. Mix until smooth. Add the salt and remainder of the flour and knead to a soft dough. Cover and let rise approximately 1 hour or until doubled in size. Punch down dough and roll out to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut rounds to preferred size*. On a cookie sheet with greased parchment, cover and let rise 30 minutes. Bake at 375 degrees F for 8 minutes on each side.

Our Notes~

*We used a 3 inch round cutter and got 17 muffins from a single batch.