High tea anyone? English muffins sound exotic and complicated to make from scratch (blame it on the mysterious foreign accent), but surprisingly, cooking these delicious no-salt morsels follows an easy and oh-so-British straightforward approach. In commemoration of the Queens’ Diamond Jubilee, we thought it fitting to start our morning making homemade English muffins and end our brekkie celebration with an Eggs Benedict brunch.
Yes – you’ve just read it correctly, Eggs Benedict, your highness. It’s a fully loaded phrase that you don’t often hear on an I-try-to-eat-healthier food blog. By now, all of the naughty imagery associated with Eggs Benedict should have been unleashed from the deep dark depths of your memory bank, causing your serotonin levels to serge. If we did our jobs right, we’ve probably just made your oh-so-healthy rubber neck take a one-eighty [degree spin] toward the dark side to pause and enjoy the view. For a moment or two, you revel in the pleasure. As you extend your arm’s reach and grab hold of the pitchfork named temptation, your inner guardian angel tries to snap you out of your trance. Wake up, please – just wake up!
So while your good-conscience struggles to claw back your intentions to the lighter I’m-living-on-the-healthy-side and you try to screw your head back on straight, you’ll have to pardon us for inadvertently causing you whiplash. (Okay, well maybe the whiplash wasn’t exactly unplanned – after all, we have been known to act irreverently on occasion).
In fact, our version of Eggs Benedict is pretty guilt free – or as close as we’re probably going to get. We’ve paired my mom’s no-salt English muffins recipe (below) with our newly invented velvety mock hollandaise sauce. Our mock hollandaise sauce doesn’t use butter or mayonnaise (and it’s just as creamy, being olive oil based), so we can sauce up our eggs bennie like nobody’s business. Oh, its comfort food at its finest!
Keeping on the egg theme, we’ve structured today’s Eggs Benedict series after an Easter Egg hunt. You can find a some of our healthier (vegetable-based) Eggs Benedict ideas over at Foodista Reinventing Eggs Benedict: Lightening the Love. Our Velvety Mock Hollandaise Recipe (so we can eat more portions of eggs Benedict, just kidding…well, not really…) is posted over on Davidson’s Safest Choice Eggs blog.
And Bob’s your uncle (a common British expression for, and there you have it)! Pip pip, cheerio!
Ingredients
- ½ tablespoon (no sodium) active dry yeast
- ¼ cup tepid water
- Pinch of sugar
- 2 tablespoons mashed potato (no butter or salt)
- 1 cup potato [cooking] water, or milk (potato water = "leftover water" as a result of boiling potatoes.)
- 1 ¼ cups white flour
- 1 teaspoon sodium free baking powder
- Cornmeal
Instructions
- Additional items: you will need four muffin or crumpet rings (3 inches in diameter) and a nonstick skillet.
- Combine the yeast, tepid water and sugar together and let sit (to proof the yeast).
- In a large bowl whisk together the mashed potato and milk, then add the flour and baking powder and continue to whisk until smooth. Add the yeast and beat for a minute to make a smooth thick batter a little thicker than a pancake batter. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for about 1 ½ hours, until large bubbles appear on the surface.
- Sprinkle a little cornmeal on the skillet to help prevent sticking. Spray the inside of the muffin/crumpet rings with cooking oil, and place on the pan. Using a ladle, fill the rings with the batter (that has now become light and airy). (see photos below)
- Cook on medium heat on the stove until the bubbles that appear on the top surface break (about 8 min.) Remove the rings with a pair of tongs, lift the muffins, add more cornmeal to the pan, and then flip the muffins onto the cornmeal. Allow the muffins to cook for about another minute. Remove to a rack and allow to cool.
- To serve, use a fork and push the [fork] tines into the center of the English muffin (horizontally), repeating this step around the entire circumference of the English muffin. Gently tear the two halves apart (rather than cutting across with a knife, which has a tendency of shredding the English muffin apart). Since the muffins are damp in the inside, toast in a toaster oven to slightly dry out the interior. (Devour as you normally would).
Notes
*Tip: using potato water - the goal is to use fresh potato water given that the taste profile changes the longer it is kept [refrigerated], We recommend using "same day" refrigerated leftover potato water for this recipe.
- pour the mixture into a ring mold
(sprinkle more cornmeal down first and then) flip the english muffin
About Johanna
