History of English Muffins

Even though the English muffin as we know it - specifically, the ones made by Thomas’ - were introduced stateside by English émigré Samuel Bath Thomas in New York City in 1880, English muffins aren’t actually an American invention, as some believe. They’ve been around in England since long before Thomas popularized them here. Go to any British supermarket, like Tesco or Sainsbury’s, and you’ll see them marketed as simply “muffins,” or sometimes “breakfast muffins” or “toasting muffins.” Long before every British household had an oven of its own, what we call English muffins were usually sold door to door (hence the song “Do You Know the Muffin Man,” which was being sung as early as 1820). These differed slightly from English crumpets, which are moister and chewier than English muffins due to the addition of (among other things) baking soda. After Thomas brought them to America, they quickly caught on at upscale hotels and restaurants as a fancier alternative to toast, and by the early 1900s they’d become commonplace.

Research into the origins of English-style muffins reveals that Thomas’ "secret process" was not secret at all. For centuries, British and American people understood the definition of muffins to be yeast-raised breads cooked on a griddle, fork-split to create nooks and crannies, and then cooked a second time by toasting them on a fork set by the fire to make the crags crispy. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the oldest reference to this type of bread was made in 1703 whereby a "moofin" was described as "a wheat cake baked upon a bake-stone over the fire, as oat-cakes." Recipes can be found at least as far back as the mid 18th century, but there seems to be a lack of anything older.

Recipes for yeast-based muffins, which were sometimes called "common muffins" or "wheat muffins" in 19th-century American cookbooks, can be found in much older cookbooks. In Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, she gave recipes for both types of muffins, both those that used yeast to raise the dough and those that used a quick bread method, using muffin rings to shape the English muffins. Farmer indicated that stove top "baking", as is done with yeast dough, was a useful method when baking in an oven was not practical. Mush muffins (called slipperdowns in New England) were a Colonial muffin made with hominy.

Hannah Glasse is best known for her cookbook, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, first published in 1747 in England and constantly in print for almost 100 years.

To make Muffins and Oat-Cakes.

To a bufhel of Hertfordshire white flour, take a pint and a half of good Ale Yeaft, fome pale malt, if you can get it, becaufe it is whiteft; let the yealt lye in water all night, the next day pour off the water clear, make two gallons of water juft milk-warm, not to feald your yeaft, and two ounces of salt; mix your water, yeaft and falt well together for about a quarter of an hour, then ftrain it and mix up your dough as light as poffible, and let it lye in your trough an hour to rife, then with your hand roil it, and pull it into little pieces about as big as a large walnut, roll them with your hand like a ball, lay them on your table, and as fait as you do them lay a piece of flannel over them, and be fure to keep your dough covered with flannel; when you have rolled out all your dough begin to bake the firit, and by that time they will be fpread out in the right form; lay them on your iron, as one fide begins to change colour turn the other, and take great care they don’t burn, or be too much difcoloured, but that you will be a judge of in two or three makings. Take care the middle of the iron is not too hot, as it will be, but then you may put a brickbat or two in the middle of the fire to flacken the heat. The thing you bake on muft be made thus:

Build a place juft as if you was going to fet a copper [copper kettle?], and in the ftead of a copper, a piece of iron all over the top fixed in form juft the fame as the bottom of an iron pot, and make your fire underneath with coal as in a copper. Obferve, muffins are made the fame way; only this, when you pull them to pieces roll them in a good deal of flour, and with a rolling-pin roll them thin, cover them with a piece of flannel, and they will rife to a proper thicknefs; and if you find them too big or too little, you mull roll dough accordingly. Thefe muft not be the leaft difcoloured.

When you eat them, toafl them with a fork crifp on 'both fides, then with your hand pull them open, and they will be like a honeycomb; lay in as much butter as you intend to ufe, then clap them together again, and fet it by the fire. When you think the butter is melted turn them, that both fides may be buttered alike, but don’t touch them with the knife, either to fpread or cut them open, if you do they will be as heavy as lead, only when they are quite buttered and done, you may cut them crofs with a knife.

Note, Some flour will foak up a quart or three pints more water than other flour, then you muft add more water, or fhake in more flour in the making up, for the dough muft be as light as poffible.

From The Virginia Housewife, by Mary Randolph (American)

MUFFINS.
Sift a quart of flour, put to it a little salt, and a large spoonful of yeast--beat the white of a fresh egg to a strong froth, add it, and make the flour up with cold water, as soft as you can to allow it to be handled; set it in a moderately warm place. Next morning, beat it well with a spoon, put it on the griddle in a round form, and bake it nicely, turning them frequently till done.
From The Virginia Housewife, by Mary Randolph, 1860 (originally published in 1824)

CRUMPETS.
Take a quart of dough from your bread at a very early hour in the morning; break three fresh eggs, separating the yelks from the whites--whip them both to a froth, mix them with the dough, and add gradually milk-warm water, till you make a batter the thickness of buckwheat cakes: beat it well, and set it to rise till near breakfast time; have the griddle ready, pour on the batter to look quite round: they do not require turning.
From The Virginia Housewife, by Mary Randolph, 1860 (originally published in 1824)

From Miss Leslie’s Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches (American)

WATER MUFFINS. Put four table-spoonfuls of fresh strong yeast into a pint of lukewarm water. Add a little salt; about a small tea-spoonful; then stir in gradually as much sifted flour as will make a thick batter. Cover the pan, and set it in a warm place to rise. When it is quite light, and your griddle is hot, grease and set your muffin rings on it; having first buttered them round the inside. Dip out a ladle full of the batter for each ring, and bake them over a quick fire. Send them to table hot, and split them by pulling open with your hands.
Miss Leslie’s Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches (1840)

COMMON MUFFINS. [adds eggs to the batter]
Having melted three table-spoonfuls of fresh butter in three pints of warm milk, set it away to cool. Then beat three eggs as light as possible, and stir them gradually into the milk when it is quite cold; adding a tea-spoonful of salt. Stir in by degrees enough of sifted flour to make a batter as thick as you can conveniently beat it; and lastly, add two table-spoonfuls of strong fresh yeast from the brewery. Cover the batter and set it in a warm place to rise. It should be light in about three hours. Having heated your griddle, grease it with some butter tied in a rag; grease your muffin rings round the inside, and set them on the griddle. Take some batter out of the pan with a ladle or a large spoon, pour it lightly into the rings, and bake the muffins of a light brown. When done, break or split them open with your fingers; butter them and send them to table hot.
Miss Leslie’s Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches (1840)

Some older mentions and recipes in America:

"English Muffins" are on a menu for Thomas’ Dining Saloon, 157 and 1559 Main Street, Buffalo, which was printed in The Buffalo Daily Republic Buffalo, New York 22 Sep 1859.

A recipe published in the The Weekly Star, Plymouth, Pennsylvania 29 Mar 1876, reads: "Make a sponge overnight as for bread, using nothing but yeast, flour, a little salt, and tepid water. In the morning, beat it up well and pour into muffin rings upon the griddle. The batter should be just stiff enough to drop (not run) from a spoon."

And English muffins are described in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Brooklyn, New York 04 Nov 1870, as "made of flour, yeast, salt and water without any sugary or buttery addition; separate portions of the dough made with these ingredients are allowed to rise or ferment, and are baked on a heated iron plate, being turned to allow each surface a fair share of heat. A muffin is therefore, a small loaf of leavened bread, dainty, or fancy bread."