English Muffins on Top of a Wood Stove–thread saved from Baking Circle

[BakerAunt]

Note: Thread originally appeared on Baking Circle on January 6, 2016.

English Muffins on Top of a Wood Stove
We are in Indiana, where we have a wood stove with an upper and a lower deck. It has been my dream since last year to try cooking English Muffins on it. I am in the middle of the experiment, using a Le Creuset rectangular grill pan. My infrared thermometer is also getting a workout. The hard thing is to keep the temperature at around 300F. The upper deck is not hot enough, and the lower deck is too hot. I have been switching the pan between the two of them. I think it is sort of working. I have done four, and with 15 minutes on each side, it took a while to get to 180F (instant read thermometer). This time I did three, and I am about to turn them. (This is going to be a long night, as I have five to go.) The recipe is the Easy Buckwheat Oat English Muffins that is in members' recipes. I will report back tomorrow on how this experiment turns out, after we have breakfast.
posted by: bakeraunt on January 06, 2016 at 12:40 am in General discussions
reply by: bakeraunt on January 06, 2016 at 9:42 am
Here is the promised follow-up. English muffins can be cooked on the deck of a wood burning stove, but it is hard to modulate temperature. Toward the end, as the fire burned down, I was having trouble keeping enough heat on the lower deck, and I added a piece of wood. I should have pre-heated the griddle for longer than I did before I started. Moving back and forth between the upper and lower decks seemed to work well. I may try this again at some point, but not this trip, as there isn't time.
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The texture is pretty good. Although the holes are not as large as on some commercial muffins, they do have some cragginess. Since it takes 30 minutes to cook each batch, subsequent batches are more spread out and did not rise quite as high as the first batch. That would be an issue on a conventional stove as well, so maybe part of the answer is more griddle surface. Next time, I will try to keep the non-cooked ones cooler so that the rise is slower and they do not sink down and spread before I can get them on the griddle. They still puffed up when put on the griddle, just not as high as the first batch.
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The taste is excellent. We are both buckwheat fans., I made the recipe as given, except that I substituted in 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk for the water, and I used active yeast, which I proofed in the remaining 1/4 cup of water. I used the lesser amount of salt. I mixed it in the bread machine on the dough cycle. I let it rise in a separate greased bowl and found that the dough only needed an hour to rise. I used farina (cream of wheat) to dust them and the griddle. They toasted well. My husband--a Philistine who NEVER splits and toasts an English muffin but just eats them as they are with margarine, and often jam or honey--also liked them. I, of course, split mine with a fork (the English muffin splitter is back in Texas), toasted it, and slathered it with Land of Lakes butter/canola light blend. Ah, so good with coffee! It is too bad that I do not have any of my homemade jam here.
reply by: skeptic7 on January 06, 2016 at 11:41 am
Congratulations on a success. Do you have the English Muffins covered to keep the heat in when you cook them? I've always baked my English Muffins, not cooked them on a griddle so I was wondering. I saw pictures of baking in a Dutch Oven on a campfire and that was always covered.
reply by: bakeraunt on January 06, 2016 at 1:14 pm
Thanks. Sometimes it is fun to branch out. I have never done English muffins in the oven, although I know sometimes people finish them in the oven if the center is still not baked and the muffins are overbrowning on the outsides. I also have never covered them I usually use a griddle pan, so the cover would not really work. I have used a large Calphalon griddle at home on my gas stove with mixed results. I will try that again, now that I have an infrared thermometer to monitor surface temperature. I have a smaller (10-inches, I think) cast iron pan that I have used for making bread wraps with great success, and I might try it for English muffins on the regular stove as well. Both of those are in the Texas kitchen right now..
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This oven is not designed for putting a pot inside. Its main function is heating the house, but we were told when we bought it that it could be used for soups, etc. I like to make soup by putting a Le Creuset Dutch oven on the upper level. At some point I will try flat breads, and also pancakes.
reply by: KIDPIZZA on January 06, 2016 at 4:52 pm

BAKERAUNT:
Good afternoon my friend. Marliss thank you I received your note.
.
~CASS.
reply by: frick on January 06, 2016 at 8:42 pm
I've only made English muffins a few times but each time they were made on an electric griddle. That's the best way of maintaining a fairly consistent temp, though it does fluctuate. They did get done in the middle without burning or resorting to the oven. And since it's fairly large, several could be made at once, but not all of them. They did puff up a little thicker than ideal, and got smaller in diameter. I can't remember what recipe I used, but would go with a looser batter next time so I don't get 'English balls'.
reply by: bakeraunt on January 08, 2016 at 11:56 pm In case anyone wants to try these, here is the link to the recipe:
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Note: I've removed the old address, as it is no longer valid. You can find the recipe here at Nebraska Kitchen if you search for "by suetheviewfrom" or by the recipe name.
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This person only posted this one recipe on the KAF Baking Circle--no other interaction on the forum. I am glad that she put it on. She has a blog, which looks interesting.

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• This topic was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.

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