Easy, economical, and delicious, English Muffin Bread is loaded with nooks and crannies for melted butter and jam. No mixer, no kneading, a few pantry ingredients, and only 2 hours will make the perfect bread for toast and sandwiches.
🥣Ingredients
All-purpose flour
Instant dry yeast
Pantry ingredients—salt, sugar, baking soda
Milk or dry milk with water
Cornmeal—optional
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It is a very simple homemade bread, perfect for beginner breadmakers. Just follow the easy step-by-step photo instructions for a delicious no-kneed bread with a soft but coarse texture loaded with those nooks and crannies you want.
If you love English muffins, this is the bread for you. Sometimes called English toasting bread or muffin bread, think of English muffin bread as muffins in a loaf, even with the traditional cornmeal-coated crust.
👨🍳How to Make English Muffin Bread
Common pantry ingredients most home kitchens will have.
Optional proofing of the yeast—Mix one pack of instant yeast into 1 ½ cups of 105° - 110° water or milk. Let's sit while you do the dry mix. It should foam a little after a few minutes.
In a large mixing bowl, mix 2 ½ cups of AP or bread flour, ½ cup dried milk if not using milk, 1 teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon of baking soda, and 1 ½ teaspoon of sugar.
Mix wet into dry and stir until there is no dry left.
Spray the bowl and some plastic wrap with a good spray of PAM on one side and cover the bowl with the plastic. The PAM will prevent sticking if the plastic touches the sticky dough. Place in a warm spot until double in size—30-60 minutes.
Coat a loaf pan with butter and swirl about two tablespoons of cornmeal to coat. This is an 8X4 glass pan, but metal should be fine.
Preheat oven to 375°. Move the dough into the pan. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until even with the top of the pan — about 30 minutes.
Remove plastic wrap. Bake until golden brown and an internal temp of 190°-200°—about 30-35 minutes. Allow to cool for about 60 minutes on a rack.
For more details, keep reading. See the Recipe Card below for complete instructions and to print.
When is English Muffin Bread Done
Fully baked bread should have a nice brown color and a hollow sound when tapped.
An internal temperature of 190° is a reliable endpoint for yeast bread. That is fine here, but up to 200° is OK.
✔️Tips to make it right every time.
- This is a "light dough" with not a lot of structure. It needs to be contained by the loaf pan to bake well. The top will not "crown" and may "fall" at the end.
- Let the loaf cool completely before cutting, or you may rip it apart. And when you do cut it, a sharp serrated blade knife is a good idea.
- Hand mixing is preferred. Stand mixers and bread machines will tend to over-mix.
- One package of yeast is 2 ½ teaspoons of bulk dry yeast.
- Using bread flour instead of AP flour will give a slightly better structure from more gluten formation. Use what you have.
- Instant Yeast is essentially the same as Fast-Rising, Rapid-Rise, Quick Rise, and Bread Machine Yeast. Active dry yeast can be used, but it works slower.
- Coating the baking pan with cornmeal is traditional but not required. You can skip the cornmeal, but it will lose some taste and classic crunch.
Other Bread Recipes
Try other great bread recipes like Stand Mixer Bread—Basic White, Julia Child's French Bread, and Stand Mixer Peasant Bread.
🍞How to use English Muffin Bread
It's a perfect toasting bread for a toast and jam breakfast but also for French toast and will make terrific homemade sandwiches.
❄️Storage
Like many homemade loaves of bread, there are no preservatives, so the shelf life is relatively short at only 2-3 days.
You can freeze this bread tightly sealed for 2-3 months. I like to cut it into slices and separate it with parchment paper before freezing for convenience.
❓FAQs
No. English muffins and this bread are American creations and not English. The muffin bread is also known as English Muffin Toasting Bread.
Although a British immigrant in New York City developed English Muffins.
Whole wheat may be partially used. If you go over a 50% mixture, you may need a bit more liquid and should add some honey.
This recipe is listed in these categories. See them for more similar recipes.
Have you tried this recipe, or have a question? Join the community discussion in the comments.
📖 Recipe
English Muffin Bread
Ingredients
- 1 package instant yeast - approximately 2 ½ teaspoons
- 1 ½ teaspoons sugar
- 1 ½ cup milk or water
- ½ cup dried milk - if using water
- 2 ½ cups bread or AP flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- butter - For loaf pan
- cornmeal-optional - For loaf pan
Instructions
- Optional proofing of the yeast—Mix one pack of instant yeast into 1 ½ cups of 105° - 110° water or milk. Let's sit while you do the dry mix. It should foam a little after a few minutes.
- In a large mixing bowl, mix 2 ½ cups of AP or bread flour, ½ cup dried milk if not using milk, 1 teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon of baking soda, and 1 ½ teaspoon of sugar.
- Mix wet into dry and stir until there is no dry left.
- Spray the bowl and some plastic wrap with a good spray of PAM on one side and cover the bowl with the plastic. The PAM will prevent sticking if the plastic touches the sticky dough. Place in a warm spot until double in size—30-60 minutes.
- Coat a loaf pan with butter and swirl about two tablespoons of cornmeal to coat. This is an 8X4 glass pan, but metal should be fine.
- Preheat oven to 375°. Move the dough into the pan. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until even with the top of the pan — about 30 minutes.
- Remove plastic wrap. Bake until golden brown and internal temp of 190°-200°—about 30-35 minutes.
- Allow to cool for about 60 minutes on a rack.
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Recipe Notes
Pro Tips
- You may use fresh milk or dried milk.
- Use either bread flour or all-purpose flour.
- Most yeasts will work other than old fashion “active dry yeast.” One pack of yeast is 2 ½ teaspoons if you have bulk. You can round that up to 1 tablespoon if you want.
- I suggest an 8 ½ by 4 ½ inch loaf pan. A 9 by 5 should be ok, but not bigger.
- I suggest using a thermometer to check for a final internal temperature of 190° to 200°. Also, when tapped, a nice brown color and a hollow sound should be present.
- The top of the loaf will probably be flat or even sunken a bit.
- Cool completely before cutting, or it will rip apart.
- Store tightly sealed at room temperature for 2-3 days. It may last 4 days, but maybe not. Do not refrigerate. You may freeze well sealed for 2-3 months.
Your Own Private Notes
To adjust the recipe size:
You may adjust the number of servings in this recipe card under servings. This does the math for the ingredients for you. BUT it does NOT adjust the text of the instructions. So you need to do that yourself.
Nutrition Estimate
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Based on Cook Country English Muffin Bread Recipe (membership required). I made it a one-loaf recipe and added options and details.
Editors Note: Originally Published January 18, 2014. Update with expanded discussion and refreshed photos. A table of contents was also added to aid navigation.
Bllue says
Looking forward to trying this recipe. I love English Muffin bread, especially toasted.
In Pro Tip #8 it says "You may freeze well sealed for 2-3 days." I'm hoping that should be months rather than days. This bread always disappears quickly but I was going to double the recipe and freeze 1 loaf!
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan says
Yep, months—fixed.
Joy Beckerley says
Can you use whole wheat flour in this recipe? Can you add dried fruit? Thanks. Joy
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan says
Hi Joy,
Welcome to the blog.
I have never done it. It is ok to try some whole wheat but here are some generalities. Whole wheat needs more fluid, so the more whole flour added, the more liquid. Also, whole wheat has less glutin and a lot of the appeal of this recipe depends on the glutin creating the nooks and crannies.
So you can probable get away with 25% whole wheat by just adding a bit more fluid. Also, switch the white flour to bread flour, which has more glutin, would be a good idea.
50% will be a more dense bread but probably would be acceptable (I think). More the 50%- find a different recipe, it just won't be good.
Adding dried fruit would be generally fine. Dust the fruit with some flour before adding it and it will help keep it suspended throughout the dough.
Hope that helps. If you try it, please post your results.
Dan
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan says
Hi Bev,
Welcome to the blog.
As they say, see something say something. Thanks so much for the proofread. This one is embarrassing. Fixed. That is 375 everywhere.
Dan
Jan says
Dr Dan
First off I want to say I like your recipes very much. My husband and I are empty nesters. After cooking for 5 for alot of years I was finding it hard to cook for 2 again not with the help of your recipes I getting used to it. Do have a question about your English muffin bread recipe ; when you say dry milk do you mean powder milk?
Thanks for your time
May god bless you and keep you safe
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan says
Hi Jan,
Welcome to the blog and I'm glad you are finding it useful.
Yes, I use the terms "dry milk" and "powdered milk" interchangeably. I have seen both on packages and it is all the same and meets USDA standards.
I like to use powder (dry) milk since I can get the temperature I want for the liquid right much easier. I seem to never "hit the mark" when trying to get fresh milk to the temperature I want. I'm lazy.
Also, as you know, in a smaller household, keeping fresh milk can lead to waste. I always have dry in the pantry and I frequently don't have fresh.
So I published the recipe as dry milk but gave a fresh milk option.
Dan
Caroline says
Thanks! I was looking for a way to use up some dried milk. I'll definitely give this a try.