National English Muffin Day, celebrated on April 23 every year, brings attention to one of the most beloved breakfast foods in the world. It’s a small, round bread, roughly four inches in diameter and about 1.5 inches tall. Yeast is added to the mixture, which helps the little bread rise, and it’s usually sliced through horizontally and toasted on both sides before being served.
They are loved for their versatility, with people around the world using them as a base for almost any food item, which is usually some form of breakfast food.
- 900 AD – Known simply as a muffin in the United Kingdom, the English muffin is reportedly the first to have emerged from Wales in 900 A.D.
- 1600s – According to the chef Clarissa Dickson Wright, under the reign of King Charles II, breakfast becomes a part of daily life, but only for the rich.
- 1783 – Christopher Potter opens the first chain of bakeries in Westminster.
- 1861 – Isabella Beeton writes, “The Book of Household Management,” and within its pages, she suggests that every household’s day should begin with a breakfast buffet.
- 1880 – Samuel Bath Thomas sold them from his bakery located in Chelsea and called them “toaster crumpets”.
- The top secret recipe for those original English muffins made the Thomas brand very popular in its time, and continuing in modern times to be the #1 top-selling brand in the country.
- 19th Century – In the final few years of the century, these little bread caught on and grew in popularity throughout New York and other places in the US, eventually earning the name “English muffin”.
- This name is a bit confusing, though, because while they were invented by an Englishman, they really and truly do come from the United States.
- In fact, some people believe that it took the English muffin approximately a century to make it to England when it was first imported there from the US.
- 1906 – The Kellogs Breakfast Company is founded, and the popular and now proverbial phrase, “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” is coined.
- 1926 – Thomas trademarked his interpretation of a crumpet as the English muffin. However, the first known use of the term “English muffin” was in 1894, according to its trademark filing.
- 1964 – McDonald’s has used the same bakery from California, called Fresh Start Bakeries, to supply their English muffins all over the country.
- 1970s – the Thomas company created an advertising campaign that used the slogan “nooks & crannies” when referring to the holes in the English muffins. This memorable campaign encouraged folks to spread butter or jam into these little “nooks & crannies” while the muffin was still warm.
- 1972 – Mcdonald’s introduced one of its staple breakfast items, with an English muffin as its delivery system, the ‘McMuffin.’
- In England, this bread isn’t called an English muffin, it’s just called a “muffin” or a “breakfast muffin”. But crumpets and scones are more popular.
- To prevent the dough from sticking to the griddle, the English muffins are coated in farina, which is a soft semolina and appears like small white spots on the outside of the muffin.
- According to the Thomas’ company, it is best to use the fingers or a fork to split open an English muffin, but never a knife because it cuts away the “nooks and crannies”.
- An English muffin has some fiber as well as nutrients like selenium, manganese and B vitamins.
- Compared to other breakfast foods, English muffins are somewhat low in calories, coming in at just over 130 calories per serving
- In 2020 in the U.S. alone, 171.77 million English muffins were consumed.
- The English muffin, and the process in which it is made, leaves its closest baked cousin, the crumpet.
- Thomas’s original recipe is a closely guarded secret. According to the company that still bears his name, only seven people know how to make an English muffin with his method.
- Samuel Bath Thomas first used griddle baking to create an English muffin filled with Nooks and Crannies. He later opened his own bakery, The Muffin House, in New York City in 1880.
• Last year, 1.75 billion Thomas’ English Muffins were sold! New York, California, Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey reign supreme as the states with the highest sales of English muffins.
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