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[1] Sweeten cream cheese and top with strawberries for a strawberry cheesecake English muffin (photo © California Strawberry Commission).
[2] Avocado cheeseburger (photo © Thomas Breads).
[3] Peanut butter and banana for breakfast, lunch or snack (photo © Wolferman’s).
[4] English muffin mini-pizzas (photo © The Wholesome Junk Food Cookbook).
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What other ways to use English muffins have you tried—beyond a breakfast bread, mini pizzas (photo #4), the base for Eggs Benedict and your version of the Egg McMuffin?
April 23rd is National English Muffins Day, so here are a few more ideas.
If you have too many English muffins on hand, instead of tucking them into the freezer, try:
Avocado toast
Bread pudding
Breakfast casserole
Burger or cheeseburger (photo #2)
Cinnamon sugar English muffins (for breakfast, or a la mode for dessert)
Croutons
French toast
Grilled cheese and melts
Sandwiches—any kind
Sweet snacks: cheesecake (photo #1), PB & banana (photo #3), PB&J, Nutella, s’mores
Substitute for the traditional toast base for dishes like creamed chipped beef and ragout
ENGLISH MUFFIN HISTORY
The English muffin, first called a “toaster crumpet,” was invented in New York City in 1894 by Samuel Bath Thomas, a British immigrant.
The English muffin is not a muffin per se, but a variation of the crumpet—a raised muffin cooked on a griddle in a ring mold until is brown on the bottom and riddled with small holes on the top.
That description is not too dissimilar from the “nooks and crannies” that Thomas’s, the original English muffin, has been proclaiming for some 30 years.
Immediately embraced as a more elegant alternative to toast, it was served at fine hotels and ultimately became a mainstay of American breakfast cuisine.
You may see crumpets at specialty food stores or at fancy brunches and teas and think that they’re English muffins, but the giveaway is that they’re unsplit.
Then, what’s the difference between an English muffin and a crumpet?
They are cousins, maybe even half brothers, depending on how you like your culinary analogies.
Both have milk and yeast (plus flour, shortening and salt), but crumpet batter is moister to begin with and cooks up to more of a muffin-like moistness than the English muffin.
The English muffin is similar in moisture to other toasted breads.
Whereas English muffins are known for having small holes inside, crumpets develop the holes on their top side.
In fact, the English muffin started life as a split crumpet known as the “toaster crumpet.”
While Thomas named his new style of bread the English muffin, the Brits not only did not invent the English muffin.
In fact, they had never heard of an “English muffin” until the 1990s, when Best Foods, a unit of international conglomerate Unilever, bought the S.B. Thomas brand*.
They began exporting English muffins to the U.K. in early 2009. (We could not find any information om how the British felt about Americans selling “English muffins” to them.
Here’s more about Samuel Bath Thomas and the invention of the English Muffin.
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*The brand has been sold numerous times. In 1922, after the death of Samuel Bath Thomas, the family incorporated S.B. Thomas, Inc. On August 3, 1926, they registered the “Thomas” trademark. In 1970, the business was acquired by the CPC food conglomerate; in January 1, 1998 the conglomerate was renamed Bestfoods. The brand was more recently owned by George Weston Bakeries, an operating unit of George Weston Ltd., which sold it to the U.S. subsidiary of a Mexican baking company, Bimbo Bakeries USA, which also owns Entenmann’s, Sara Lee and other brands.
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