Vegan Sourdough English Muffins Recipe
If you’ve had storebought English muffins and weren’t impressed, you’re not alone. I often find them to be hard, dry, and bland. But it doesn’t have to be that way! We’ve developed this vegan sourdough English muffins recipe to be soft, filled with nooks and crannies, perfect for toasting, with a good chew, a little sweet, and with that delicate tang that only a live sourdough culture can give. If you’ve never had homemade English muffins, they really are a game-changer. In order to make the most of the craggily sourdough interior, use a fork not a knife to separate the two halves. Toast the inside until golden, and melt on vegan butter and jam. So go on, get your sourdough starters active and I’ll see you back here for some slow-food, sourdough, cottage-core, homesteading cooking.
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Working with Sourdough
I have to start off by saying that I am a bad sourdough baker. I don’t make bread regularly, or feed my starter daily, or even maintain my starter for more than a couple months. My “method”, if you can call it that, is to get some starter from my mother (who does properly maintain hers), feed it a few times, make a few projects, and then neglect it in the back of my fridge until I finally get around to cleaning my fridge and throw it out. I’ve done this at least 3 times now, so it’s become a pattern. If you operate similarly but don’t have a mother diligently maintaining a starter that you can pilfer, I hear you can dry out sourdough starter for later use.
Despite my bad sourdough habits, I do really love working with sourdough. It’s a slow process, that uses simple ingredients to create the tastiest of baked goods. Sourdough is made using a starter, which is made and fed from flour and water. That medium is fermented, and cultivates wild yeasts and bacteria. Some of those microbes will contribute to the sour flavor of your breads, and others will cause the dough to rise when baked. It is the more traditional method for making bread, before commercial yeasts were developed.
People have very strong feelings about how to best care for a starter, and in what ratios to feed it. Many people advocate for a daily feeding- I’ve never tried this so I can’t say if it’s worth it. Again, as a bad sourdough mama I don’t have strong feelings, but I’ll share you my method for when I am caring for my starter. I store my starter in the fridge, and try not to go more than a month without using it. When I do want to start a project, I take it from the fridge and pull out the amount I want for a recipe. For example, in this recipe I started with 40 grams of starter. Then I feed both the jar and the bit I’m using, in equal parts flour and water by weight. And trust me, you want to be measuring by weight when you’re making sourdough, it’s much simpler and more accurate. In my jar I add 20 grams of flour and 20 grams of water, to replenish the 40 grams I took. The bit I’m using got 30 grams of flour and 30 water. I let both of those sit on the counter until active and bubbly, usually about 6 hours for me. You want your starter to be able to pass the float test- basically if you drop a small amount of it in water, it should stay on the top and not sink. Then the jar of starter goes back in the fridge until I need it again, and the active starter for my recipe is ready to be made into bread or English muffins. I can’t say that this is necessarily the best method for sourdough making, but I do really like that it’s easy, low maintenance, and low waste.
Baking Breakfast? Try one of these recipes!
- Sweet and Simple Vegan Dandelion Bread
- Vegan Banana Carob Chip Muffins
- Vegan Apple Cinnamon Rolls from Scratch
- Champagne Grape Almond Butter Swirl Bread
- Golden Milk Turmeric Vegan Cinnamon Rolls
- Vegan Rye Flour Muffins with Raisins
- Olive and Dulse (Seaweed) Vegan Scones
- Vegan Date Scones with Rose Glaze
- Vegan Cheese and Rhubarb Danish
- Vegan Scones with Raspberry Apple Compote
- Savory Herbed Vegan Pumpkin Muffins
Looking for Jams and Spreads? Try one of these!
- Bittersweet Pomelo Jam with Thyme
- Homemade Vegan Nutella Recipe
- Sunrise Vegan Rhubarb Curd
- Two Crabapple Recipes: Crabapple Jelly and Butter
- Quick Japanese Knotweed Jam with Mint
- Easy Kumquat Marmalade Recipe with Ginger
- Seasonal Vegan Spinach and Garlic Scape Pesto
- Smoky Vegan Onion Jam
- Sweet and Savory Tomato Jam Recipe
How to Make these Vegan Sourdough English Muffins
English muffins are made with an enriched, sticky dough, and it all starts with your active sourdough starter. I like to feed my starter in the early afternoon, so that I can make the dough in the evening and allow to ferment overnight before cooking the muffins the next day.
The dough is made with active starter, flour, water, melted vegan butter, sugar, and salt. I recommend using a stand mixer to create this dough, unless you want a good (and sticky) arm workout. In order to get the craggily crevice filled interior in your muffins, you need to give it a good 10 minutes in the mixer (which you might want to multiply by 3 if kneading by hand). The dough will still be a little sticky after kneading, but ready for a long, slow fermentation. Because our dough is enriched, the fats slow down the fermentation process and it needs a longer bulk rise than a non-enriched dough. Overnight on the counter works great, just make sure you cover with a damp towel to prevent your dough drying out.
The next day (or 8-12 hours later), it’s time to shape the dough. Stretch or roll until the dough is about 1/2 inch thick, and then let it sit for a few minutes so the gluten relaxes. Find a circle-cutting device, ideally about 4 inches in diameter but three will work. These biscuit cutters would be perfect, but you can also use a mason jar lid, a drinking glass, or a small vase. Cut your dough into circles, and place them on a tray lined with cornmeal (if you omit the cornmeal, the dough is likely to stick to the tray). Squoosh the dough scraps together, and repeat making muffins until all your dough is used. After that your dough will need a second rising period before it’s time for baking.
And English muffins aren’t baked in the traditional sense- that is they’re made on the stove top, not the oven. I’ve found it to be one of the trickiest parts, because getting just the right temperature is hard and if you switch ovens or pans you have to start all over again. You want the stove to be fairly low, since the English muffins need to cook for 8 minutes on one side without burning. If the temperature is too high, the outsides will burn while the center isn’t cooked through. If it’s too low, they won’t puff up properly, the outside won’t be golden, and the centers will be raw. I recommend starting with just one muffin at a time to get the hang of it. My other trick is to cover the muffins after flipping them, to help the centers cook. And while you don’t want stretchy, raw dough inside, if the centers of your vegan English muffins are a little underdone, it’s fine. English muffins are meant to be opened and toasted, and that toasting can get the job done.
Once your vegan sourdough English muffins are done, they’re ready to be popped open with a fork, toasted, and served with melted butter, homemade jam, or made into the most delicious vegan breakfast sandwiches. And if you go for the breakfast sandwiches make sure to bring me one- or at least tell me your recipe. I’m a sucker for a good breakfast sandwich.
Vegan Sourdough English Muffins Recipe
Ingredients
- 100g. active sourdough starter
- 25g. granulated sugar
- 4 tbsp. plant-based butter, melted
- 280g. water, warm but not hot
- 1 tsp. table salt
- 480g. all-purpose flour
- Cornmeal, for dusting
Instructions
- In a stand mixer, combine the active starter, sugar, melted plant-based butter, water, and salt. Mix to combine. Add the flour and mix on a low speed, using a dough-hook, until the flour is integrated into the dough. Increase the speed of your mixer to medium, and let knead for 10 minutes.
- Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, and cover with a clean, damp kitchen towel. This dough needs to bulk ferment for 8-12 hours at room temperature, until it has grown in size and looks puffy.
- Dust a baking sheet with cornmeal. Punch down the dough, and transfer to a lightly floured surface. Roll or stretch the dough into a large sheet until it is about 1/2 inch thick. Allow the dough to relax for a few minutes before cutting. Use a 3 or 4 inch circle to cut your muffins- a biscuit or cookie cutter is ideal, but a mason jar lid or glass can work just fine. Transfer the cut muffins to your cornmeal covered baking sheet, leaving a little room between them. Reroll the dough scraps, and repeat the process as needed until all of the dough has been used.
- Cover your muffins again with a damp towel, and allow to rise again. They won't grow a lot in this time, but after about 90 minutes they will look slightly rounder and less sharp.
- Heat a non-stick skillet on a medium-low or low heat. Add a few of the muffins, leaving plenty of space between them. Let cook for 8 minutes- the muffins should be puffed up, and bottom should be browned but not burned. Flip and cover with a lid. Cook for another 6 minutes. Remove from the heat, and repeat, working in batches, until the muffins are all cooked.
Notes
Because this enriched dough needs a long time to rise, I find it best to start the dough in the evening and let rise overnight. It can be challenging to get the right heat for your muffins so they cook fully and don't burn. Start with one muffin, or a small batch, and increase the batch sizes as you find the perfect temperature for your pan and stove.
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