No hiking this Sunday.

Unfortunately, no hiking to report this Sunday. The weather is drab and drippy, so the outdoor activities were put on hold for a weekend. Word has it it's supposed to be sunny and amazing during the rest of the week. Of course.

Instead, this morning C and I made homemade English muffins. That was a fun adventure. I'd tried to make English muffins once before with mixed results. They turned out to be tasty little biscuits, but they were missing that bubbly, hole-y, English-muffiny crumb that leaves pockets for butter and other delicious toppings to hide. That was early last fall. Obviously, it's been a while since I've given it another go.

Armed with a recipe from the internet, we had better luck this time. Unfortunately, there aren't any pictures of the deliciousness--primarily because we devoured them so quickly! That said, here's the recipe I used (and recommend), and a link to a measure converter (useful if, like me, your measuring cups don't count things using the metric system.
Recipe (courtesy the Winos and Foodies blog): http://winosandfoodies.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/06/english_muffins.html

Measurement converter (also courtesy of that blog!):
http://cuisinedumonde.com/convert.html

A few notes about things that I discovered when making these... A non-stick pan seemed to work about as well as a cast-iron skillet. While you lose the griddle effect, it also makes the pan easier to wipe down between muffins so that you don't end up with a charred cast-iron skillet and a smoke-filled kitchen. Blahrg. Also, you can sort of feel when the muffins are done if you poke the sides--they firm up and lose a little of the doughy feel that indicates they're not quite yet ready.

All in all, a couple had scorched bottoms, a one was pretty raw in the middle, but after I got the hang of them (time, temp, type of pan)? Lovely baked breakfast yumminess.

Mmm. Muffins.