English Muffin Bread From Scratch

I love English Muffins. I love to toast them and then slather them with butter and peanut butter, because there is something amazing about how it all melts and fills up the holes of the muffin with the perfect ratio of awesome. So when I learned that I could make such a thing as English Muffin Bread? Sign. me. up.

This bread is pretty easy to make, but there is something crazy about this particular recipe. This English Muffin Bread is not made in a loaf pan—it’s made in a casserole dish.

Yes.

Like the ones my Minnesota friends would use to make a hotdish.

(Scroll to the bottom for a printable version of this recipe!)

Ingredients for English Muffin Bread

3 cups of flour, divided

1 package active dry yeast ( 2 1/2 tsp bulk)

1 1/4 cups water (115-120 degrees)

1 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

Cornmeal

How to make English Muffin Bread

In a large bowl, combine 1 cup of the flour and the yeast. Set aside.

In a saucepan, heat (and stir) the water, sugar, and salt until it is warm and everything dissolves. You want this mixture to be at 115-120 degrees. Don’t guess at the temperature. Use a thermometer.

Add the warm water/sugar/salt to the flour/yeast mixture. Use an electric mixture, a fancy stand mixer (that I still don’t have), or your muscle-ish farm arms to stir up this mixture for a few minutes.

After the dry is combined with the wet ingredients nicely, add more of the remaining flour a bit at a time—and keep stirring.

Turn out onto a flour surface and knead just a bit—we want a soft dough for this bread so it’s important not to add too much extra flour. Add enough that it’s not sticky, but don’t add more after that.

Shape your dough into a ball.

Isn’t it pretty? I think bread is the epitome of farmish artisticness.

Now, we need to put that ball of dough into a greased bowl for raising. I use lard for greasing bowls because we render our own lard here at the farm.

Let that raise, covered with a clean dishtowel, for an hour. Punch it down, cover it up again and let it rest for ten minutes or so.

While you’re waiting, you can grease a 1 quart casserole dish and sprinkle it with cornmeal.

Reform the dough into a ball and place in your corn meal sprinkled casserole dish. Sprinkle the top of the dough with extra cornmeal.

This gets to raise again (covered with a dishtowel) for about 30 minutes, or until it’s doubled, or until you are like, wow, look at how beautiful that is.

Now we get to bake it! English Muffin bread bakes for 40-45 minutes in a 400 degree oven.

If you’re worried that the crust will get too dark, you can cover it with aluminum foil, but I’ve never had an issue with it being too dark.

Isn’t it delightful? Remove the bread from the dish (it should pop right out!) and let it cool.

English Muffin bread is crusty and amazing and is similar in taste and texture to those little muffins that you stick in your toaster.

But, you know, this is a whole loaf.

A. whole. loaf.

Looking for other fabulous breads to make in your kitchen today? You can try…

One Rise Baguette: Fast and Fancy

Crusty Round Loaf: Simple and Delicious

Hamburger Buns from Scratch

Honey Wheat Pan Rolls

Homemade Breadsticks

Honey Wheat Bread: Perfect for Sandwiches

Homemade Bread Bowls

Print

English Muffin Bread

An easy yeast bread to remind you of English muffins. Made in a casserole dish instead of a loaf pan!

Servings 1 loaf

Ingredients

• 3 cups flour, divided
• 1 envelope yeast (2 1/2 tsp bulk)
• 1 1/4 cups water (115-120 degrees)
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• Cornmeal

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, combine 1 cup of the flour and all of the yeast.

2. In a saucepan, heat (and stir) the water, sugar, and salt until it is dissolved and reaches 115-120 degrees.

3. Add the water/sugar/salt to the dry mixture in the bowl. Stir/mix for three minutes, adding remaining flour as needed.

4. Turn out onto floured surface and knead lightly. Shape into a ball. Place in greased bowl, cover, let rise in warm place one hour.

5. Punch down, let rest 10 minutes. Grease 1 quart casserole dish and sprinkle with cornmeal.

6. Reshape dough into ball, place in casserole dish, sprinkle top of dough with additional cornmeal.

7. Let rise 30-45 minutes.

8. Bake at 400 for 40-45 minutes. If top is getting too dark, you can cover the bread with aluminum foil.

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