This recipe is courtesy of the Monthly Scavenger Hunt photography group on Flickr. Each month they put up a list of 20 items and each participant posts photos depicting their interpretation of each item. This month one of the items is English Muffins.

These English Muffins are brown on the outside and have the nooks and crannies that make them the perfect delivery vehicle for tuna fish (which I just happen to have, see Note 1).

I also need to thank Alton Brown for the recipe from The Muffin Man episode of Good Eats.

Note 1: You can use small tuna fish cans with the top and bottom removed for the forms. However, you need to be careful. The Starkist cans had bottoms that I could not remove. When I went to the market, I found most of the cans are now made like that. The best I could do was to buy the least expensive store brand which had bottoms that looked like they would be possible to remove (I still had to use a hand opener and some tin snips).

Note 1a: At 2 inches the English Muffins still were a bit small. I will be purchasing 3 inch forms for next time.

Note 2: To fill the forms I used three scoops from a #40 disher (a tiny ice cream scoop that will give you 40 scoops from a quart of ice cream). You can use a 1/3 cup measuring cup instead.

Ingredients

½ cup non-fat powdered milk
1 tablespoon + 1/8 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt (divided in half)
1 tablespoon shortening
1 cup hot water
1 envelope dry yeast
1/3 cup warm water
2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
Non-stick vegetable spray

Recipe

1. Combine the powdered milk, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, shortening, and hot water in a medium bowl. Stir until everything is dissolved (the shortening may not melt completely). Let cool.
2. In a small bowl combine the yeast and 1/8 teaspoon of sugar in 1/3 cup of warm water and rest until yeast has dissolved.
3. Stir the yeast mixture to the dry milk mixture. Add the sifted flour and beat thoroughly with wooden spoon until completely combined.
4. Cover the bowl and let it rest in a warm spot for 30 minutes.
5. Preheat a cast iron skillet on the stove between low and medium low.
6. Add the remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt to the mixture and mix thoroughly.
7. Place metal rings (see Note 1) onto the skillet and coat lightly with vegetable spray. Using a #40 disher put three scoops into each ring (see Note 2) and cover with the bottom of a metal pan with a weight[1] on it and cook for 6 minutes until bottom is golden brown.
8. Remove the pan and flip the rings over using a spatula. Cover with the pan and cook for another 6 minutes or until golden brown.
9. Place on a cooling rack, remove rings and cool.
10. Split with a fork, toast and serve.