English muffin
A split muffin
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| Alternative names | Breakfast muffin |
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| Type | Bread |
| Course | Bread |
| Place of origin | United Kingdom / United States |
| Creator | Samuel Bath Thomas |
| Main ingredients | wheat flour, shortening, milk, sugar, yeast |
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English muffins are small, round, flat (or thin) type of yeast-leavened bread which is commonly sliced horizontally, toasted, and buttered. Sources attribute the muffins to a version invented in the United States by an English immigrant, Samuel Bath Thomas, who based his muffins on a popular bread product that was sold door-to-door in Victorian era Britain. Toasted English muffins, which are often served as a breakfast food, are served with sweet toppings (e.g., jam or honey) or savoury toppings (e.g., cooked egg, sausage rounds or bacon and cheese). Muffin halves are also used as the bread in a variety of breakfast sandwiches.
In many places they are called English muffins to distinguish them from American muffins, which are typically larger and much sweeter.
English muffins are most often toasted and then topped with butter and/or jam. English muffins are also used in breakfast sandwiches with meat (bacon, ham, or sausage), egg (fried, scrambled, poached or steam-poached), and cheese. They are an essential ingredient in the breakfast dish Eggs Benedict. English muffins can be purchased in a wide range of varieties, including whole wheat, cinnamon raisin, cranberry, and apple cinnamon, or they can be homemade.
The word "muffin" is thought to be Low German muffen meaning 'little cakes'. In the past, muffins were sold door to door by hawkers in England as a snack bread before most houses were provided with ovens in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, giving rise to the traditional song "Do you know the Muffin Man?"
Samuel Bath Thomas emigrated from Plymouth, England to New York City in 1874. By 1880 he had opened his own bakery at 163 Ninth Avenue. He invented what he called "toaster crumpets", selling them from the bakery to hotels and grocery stores. They were soft and spongy after baking like Victorian-era English crumpets, but thinner. They were also pre-cut (what was later called "fork-split"), so as to be able to be pulled apart, without the texture being crushed as it would be by slicing. Later they were baked in ovens.
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