Day 1 – Feeding Your Starter (Levain)

Sourdough Starter (Levain)

1. Using 15g (about 1 tbsp) of your existing starter (Levain), feed it with 60g (1/2 cup) flour and 50ml (just under ¼ cup) water. Leave it loosely covered overnight until it has doubled in volume, is active, and bubbly.
2. If you have no starter yet, here is a link on how to make your own. You just need water and flour.
3. How strong your starter is depends on your flour. Use good quality flour to feed it for best results. The consistency should be like very thick, stiff pancake batter.
4. How long your starter will take depends on the temperature of your house. In winter it might need longer, in summer significantly shorter.
5. To determine if it’s ready check if it has doubled in volume, is actively bubbling, you see nice, strong gluten strands if gently pulling it away from the walls of the jar with a spoon.
6. If yours seems too runny, add a bit more flour, until it gets harder to stir and leave for a few more hours.

Day 2 – Mixing The English Muffin Dough/Bulk Proof

Mix The High Protein Dough

1. Check if your sourdough starter is ready by adding a dollop of it to the water. If it floats and is nice and bubbly, it’s ready. Ideally it should just have formed a bit of a dome in its jar, when at peak activity. Though if it just collapsed a bit you’ll be fine too.
2. Blend the cottage cheese, honey and protein powder with the water until smooth.
3. Add the cottage cheese-protein mix to the sourdough starter and stir until combined.
4. In a large bowl mix the salt into your flour.
5. Pour the liquids into your flour and stir until you have a shaggy dough without any dry flour bits.
6. Your dough will be very wet and sticky at this point. Don’t add more flour. This is working as intended.
7. Cover with a lid, plastic wrap, a shower cap or a damp tea towel and let it sit for about one hour.

Stretch And Fold

1. After the first hour, start a series of 3-4 stretch and folds.
2. To do this without too much dough on your fingers, wet your hands lightly.
3. Push both hands under the dough, pulling it upwards. Then fold it over itself.
4. Turn the bowl 90 degrees and repeat. Do this 4 times until the bowl returns to its starting position and the dough is visibly smoother and stronger.
5. Repeat every 30 minutes to 1 hour for 2-4 times or until your dough looks smooth and strong.

Bulk Ferment

1. Allow your protein muffin dough to bulk ferment on the counter for 4-6 hours or until it looks visibly risen and puffy. You should see little bubbles on top and if you used a glass bowl, even more on the sides.

Overnight Fridge Ferment

Now you have two options:

• You can cover your dough and store it in the fridge overnight for a slow fermentation (8-12 hours, or even up to 3 days if you prefer a stronger sourdough flavor or life gets in the way of baking) and shape about 2-3 hours before you want to fry your English Muffins.
• Or you can do what I did and go straight to the shaping, allowing them to overnight ferment while shaped.

Shaping The Protein English Muffins

1. Line your sheet pan with baking parchment and sprinkle with about 2 tbsp cornmeal.
2. After the overnight fermentation (or right after the bulk ferment, if you want to fry them first thing in the morning) take your dough out your bowl using a dough scraper onto your floured worktop.
3. Shape it into a neat ball by doing a “letter fold” to start giving it a bit of tension. For that, stretch the dough gently into a rectangle, fold one third over the center, then the other, essentially ending up with something like a very rough letter shape.
4. Then fold it again starting from the short ends, until you have a square with a good bit of surface tension. Pushing the side of your hand or your dough scraper underneath it while rotating against the work surface, shape into a ball. This doesn’t have to be perfect.
5. Use your dough scraper or knife to cut it in half, then quarters, then eight pieces.
6. Pat each portion down gently with your fingertips, then grab the corners and pull them up, creating a sort of bag/dumpling shape
7. Turn it seam side down on your hand or work surface (very little to no flour, so it can get traction), cup your other hand over it and start rotating in small circles until you have a neat ball and the seam at the bottom is mostly closed.
8. Gently place the shaped muffins, seam side down, on your cornmeal sprinkled baking parchment. Leave a little room between them, as they will puff up a fair bit. I got all 8 onto one sheet pan.
9. Sprinkle the tops with the remaining cornmeal and gently flatten them a bit with your palm.

Cold Ferment/Last Proof

1. I put my sourdough protein muffins in the fridge overnight at this point and since I don’t want them to dry out and form a skin, which might bake into a very hard crust later, I use a bit of a trick to keep them moist and in perfect shape while giving them time to rise.
2. I found towels decidedly too drying (even when damp) and frustratingly sticky and plastic wrap, no matter how carefully I tried to seal it always had air gaps, leading to dry bits plus was too tight to give my baguettes enough room to expand.
3. Hence I started using (clean) large plastic bags, which works marvellously!
4. Push said tray or pan into a large clean plastic bag, blow a bit of air into it, so it puffs up over the muffins and close it with a clip or knot, to get a relatively airtight seal.
5. Move into the fridge and allow to cold ferment/proof for at least 8 hours, to get the full flavor. Up to 3 days works perfect, after that they start to deflate a little.

Day 3 – Frying Your Sourdough English Muffins

1. Pre-heat a non-stick frying pan that you have a lid for on low heat. My ideal induction stove setting was 5 out of 9, but you might have to experiment a little to find the exact right one on yours.
2. Fry the muffins on the first side for about 8-9 minutes (check after 4. Your burner might run hotter!)
3. Once they are light golden brown on the first side flip and fry on the other side for another 4-5 minutes.
4. An instant read thermometer is a fabulous helper here. You’ll want the core temperature to reach 200°F/93°C