Great British Bake Off, muffins.
Muffins.
There is something about cooking with yeast. I love it, I love the fact that the yeast is living, I love the fact that the recipes are often evocative of times and people past, I love the soft and silky feel of freshly risen dough, that has to be handled with love and care.
I am also, as you know, a complete glutton and very little stirs my gastric juices more than a wodge of freshly baked bread and a slab of ice cold butter.
So it is bread week on the Great British Bake Off. I cannot watch the contestants baking bread for an hour without getting really hungry. What to do? As I read the preview in the papers they mentioned breadsticks, muffins and a bread showstopper. I have made breadsticks and have little need for a showstopper at the moment so, Mmmmm, muffins it is then.
I have recently rediscovered a copy of Elizabeth David’s book English bread and yeast cookery, a good place to start I think.
Muffins proving.
The recipe is quite bossy about how the flour must be treated, the time the dough can rise and even the pan the muffins must be cooked in.
Interestingly other recipes expect the muffins to bake partly in the oven. ED’s recipe for muffins is entirely pan/griddle cooked. I’m lucky I have both a thick bottomed griddle and a cast iron skillet. The skillet was a gift from an American friend and I brought it home from Texas in my hand-luggage!
Muffins cooking in the skillet.
This is quite a different recipe from the Paul Hollywood one in the GBBO, as the muffins are not rolled and stamped out
My muffins were formed and rolled by hand, might pin it out next time and use a cutter instead. Then I’d get that even shape and look to the surface that mine lack at the moment.
Thank goodness I didn’t have the Hollywood thumb descending onto my muffin. (insert your own joke here if you wish!)
Right I’m off to toast my muffins, slather them in butter and jam, or maybe honey, or perhaps marmite. What would you choose on yours? Other bloggers are busy making muffins too. Toy can see their efforts on Bakers Anonymous,
Waiting to be toasted.
mintcustard 
I roll mine by hand too, I prefer the uneven rustic look! Who wants them all the same! These look great…
I agree, i do ;like the rustic look too, just wondered what the bake would be like if I rolled them?
These look beautiful! I wish I could try one right now warm served with some jam, mmm…
Me too sadly they have been demolished by the family and the builders building our new conservatory who could smell them as they baked and looked so pitiful I had to feed them some too!