Make your own egg McMuffin with these English muffins from Cucina Breads.
Remember Wolferman's English muffins? They were one of my favorite mail order food finds from the 90s. I loved the muffin's thick size and the little jars of jam that came in the box.
These days, buying local has pretty much squelched the appeal of mail order food for me, so I was thrilled to discover English muffins from Cucina Breads at the Saturday Tsunami Winter Farmers Market. They are thick like Wolferman's but taste even better. I made a fried egg and bacon sandwich as soon as I got home and sailed through the rest of the day.
The distinctive texture of English muffins has always been a mystery to me, so I asked Cucina's Sheri McKelvie to explain. She said she combines commercial yeast with a sour dough starter and then lets the dough rise for four hours.
“They get lots of folding which helps trap the gas in bubbles and creates that English muffin interior texture,” she explained. “Then I bake them off in rings on a griddle with some clarified butter.”
McKelvie also said she will be experimenting with a mostly whole wheat muffin, so look for those at the market along with her eclectic mix of croissants, danish, bagels, sourdough breads, Bavarian pretzels and palmiers (translation from French: palm tree).
Cucina's selection is always a surprise because McKelvie bakes whatever “strikes her fancy.” Happily, she likes kouign amman (pronounced queen a-mon), a trendy and delicious pastry made with layers of pastry dough and caramelized on the outside with sugar.
