Wonderful recipe! I will never buy them from the store again! The English muffins are lovely when toasted; light and crisp. Mine were full of nooks and crannies! They are perfect with honey butter. In order to make sure you English muffins "work out" and aren't too dense, try these tips: Use bread flour instead of all-purpose. It has a higher gluten content which will aid in the rising of the dough. When you "scald" the milk, don't let it boil! Just heat the milk to about 185F. When activating your yeast (warm water and yeast part of recipe) follow this guideline: use water that is between 100F-115F for dry active yeast, and 120F-130F for instant active or rapid rise yeast. This isn't a necessary step in the recipe, but it will let you know if your yeast is "active". I add a pinch of flour and sugar when I do this step to "feed" the yeast. It will froth like mad! Like a previous poster noted, don't play with the dough too much after the first rise, it will lessen the amount of air in the dough. Handle it carefully! Last tip, after the second rise they will puff up. Carefully, transfer them to the greased skillet, using a spatula, and they will stay puffed up. The muffins will only "deflate" once you turn them over. Hope this helps someone!

Hands down, one of the best recipes I've gotten off the web! I had to cook them over low heat, I guess my stovetop has a higher flame than some. For those who were having trouble with the nooks and crannys: knead the dough as little as possible after you punch it down and roll it out. This will decrease the number of broken air pockets. After the first rise, the yeast does not create new pockets, it only enhances the ones that were initially formed. The more you work with the dough after the first rise, the fewer pockets of air you will have. Secondly, let the muffins REALLY rise after you've cut them and are waiting to pan bake them. They may still not be exactly like the ones in the store, but then again, those are commercial muffins and are actually not traditional English muffins.

My english muffins came out great except the interior texture of the muffin was more the consistancy of a bagel rather than an english muffin. The inside was more dense and did not have the "holes" an english muffin has. The flavor was very good though. Due to having to take my daughter somewhere, I cooked part of the muffins after a 30 minute final rise and the rest of them after an hour rise and the ones which were allowed to rise longer were nicer and bigger. Delicious toasted and topped with cream cheese!!

My husband and I were very impressed with this recipe! I did have to alter the cooking of the dough: low heat for about 8 min. on each side, and frequently turning them to brown evenly. Delicious!

I am still in the process of making this recipe. However, I do have a question. The recipe states to add the sugar to the shortening and milk. It also says to add the sugar to the yeast and water mixer. I have added the sugar to the milk mixture for ease in dissolving the sugar. The dough has risen beautifully and the muffins are rising before cooking. It seems funny to 'bake' the muffins in the frying pan.

I love these! The yeast will proof faster if you add the sugar to the water/yeast mixture, but I've made it both ways and it works just fine.

These were very tasty. They are best would cooked slowly. It takes time but the English Muffins are delicious. They keep well for about a week and toast well.

These are wonderful!! I found them very easy to make. Made them early in the am, and by lunch my family had eaten half of them....got about 20 from the recipe. I froze the rest and they held up very well. I will certainly use this many times. Thank you so very much!!

This truly are better than store bought. Well worth your time.

what a treat these were! the kids gobbled them up fast and they are picky! I enjoyed them myself as well...just a bit confused though about the sugar (when to add, since it is mentioned twice. I added it with the shortening and milk)