Grant Crilly is the Executive Director and cofounder of ChefSteps. Grant is a classically trained chef and, prior to ChefSteps, he worked on the award-winning cookbook series Modernist Cuisine and cooked at various restaurants, including L’Astrance in Paris, Busaba in Mumbai, and Mistral Kitchen in Seattle.

Grant Crilly

This is a straightforward, classic English muffin recipe. The goal here is maximum nooks and crannies. In order to get them, we take the slow approach to resting the dough, resting the muffins before cooking, and using a fork (never a knife) to split them open. The best result comes from lots of resting, up to 24 to 48 hours. But if you scroll to the end of the activity below, you will see the results from a one hour bench rest, and then right to cooking—NOT BAD. The mixture of flour, yeast, and milk fat must be quite soft—closer to pancake batter than bread dough—for those bubbles to form. If it’s too stiff, the steam bubbles will remain round and separate as the dough bakes and expands, and the final product will be bread-like. If, however, the dough is loose, wet, and admittedly difficult to handle, then expanding steam will form large columns in the baking dough, giving the final muffin that traditional honeycomb look.Go for it!

Scratch English Muffins, Slow and Classic