No more "no carb" diets for this girl. Well, I wasn't actually on a "no carb" diet, but I did cut down on breads in my diet.
However, I found myself eating carbs by munching on crackers and pretzels (yes, I'm guilty of this) because my body needs carbs. Actually, we all need carbs in our diets, just not an enormous amount and not the processed foods like we've become accustomed to, like store bought crackers, pretzels, or chips.
By cleaning up my diet, I'm going to start making my own breads and maybe soft pretzels, because those are another baking bucket list food for me, so I can control how much sodium, salt, or sugar goes in my foods without all those preservatives.
Ok, I had my say and I'll step down from my soapbox now. Please forgive me, I can be really passionate about my food.
Now don't y'all be holding me to this on all my sweets! I will make some healthy dessert recipes, but I'm not guaranteeing all of them will be healthy. A girl's gotta live some!
Lately I've been experimenting with making homemade breads and this recipe is one of them. I love English muffins! With their crispy crusts and soft texture.
So you can only imagine how happy I was when I saw this recipe for English muffin bread by Merissa at Little House Living. I couldn't wait to make it!
And while I was making it, a fleeting thought crossed my mind as I was moving my skillet, "what if I made this in my skillet?". I broke out in a happy dance right there! English Muffin Skillet Bread!
If you've been keeping up with me, you know how much I've been cooking with my iron skillet! Rosemary and Sun Dried Tomato Whole Wheat Focaccia Bread, along with last week's Vegetable Frittata to name a few. And now this English Muffin Skillet Bread.
It's soft and airy inside with a crisp crust that's reminiscent of the beloved English muffin. It's perfect with just butter and jam, or you can serve it with soups, or make sandwiches with it. Really you can use it like you would any other bread, it's just that good.
And it's easy to make so don't let the yeast scare you from making this bread. This is one of the easiest breads I've made with little kneading. No kneading if you own a stand mixer because it does all the work!
And keeping true to what I mentioned earlier, I used honey instead of white sugar in this recipe. Yes, honey works just the same as sugar to help activate the yeast.
If you notice, I don't add in the salt until after the yeast is initially activated. This is because salt slows down yeast activation. That's a little tip I learned along the way in my journey of making homemade bread.
Just remember, the milk and water for this recipe need to be between 90 and 110F degrees to activate the yeast. A food or candy thermometer will help you get the right temperature.
I know you're going to absolutely love it as much as I do because there's nothing like homemade bread!
Let me know how you like this English Muffin Skillet Bread and what you eat it with.
English Muffin Skillet Bread
An easy English muffin bread baked in your iron cast skillet.
Prep time: 30 minutes (includes rising time for dough)Cook time: 40 minutes
Total time: 1 hour and 10 minutes
Yield: 1 loaf skillet bread
Ingredients
- 5 cups All-purpose flour
- 2 packets active dry yeast
- 1 Tablespoon honey
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 2 cups warm milk
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 1/4 cup cornmeal
- In a large mixing bowl, add warm milk, water, and honey. Sprinkle both packets of yeast over the top and mix together with a fork. Cover with a dish towel and let sit for 10-15 minutes as yeast activates.
- After 10-15 minutes, mix in by hand 2 and 1/2 cups of flour. Cover with towel and let sit for 10 minutes.
- While yeast is activating, you can preheat oven to 375F degrees and prepare skillet.
- Prepare 12" skillet by greasing with shortening or olive oil and sprinkling about 2 Tablespoons of cornmeal on bottom of skillet. Set aside.
- Using a stand mixer, mix in remaining flour and salt to yeast mixture, about 5 minutes. Dough will be sticky.
- Shape dough into a ball and place into skillet. Spread dough out to cover bottom of skillet.
- Cover with a clean, dry dish towel and place in a warm, draft-free area for 1 hour or until dough doubles in size.
- Once dough has doubled in size, remove towel and sprinkle about 2 Tablespoons of cornmeal over the top.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes or until top is lightly browned.
- Remove from oven and serve warm with butter and jam.
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