SourTube: English Muffins With Real Nooks and Crannies (feat. Buttered Side Up)

📺 SourTube pick: This is a curated video — we didn't make it, we just love it and think you will too. All credit belongs to the creator below. Watch it, learn from it, then go show them some love.

Today's pick: English Muffins With Real Nooks and Crannies

Creator: Buttered Side Up (Erica Lea) — butteredsideupblog.com
Watch on YouTube: BEST Sourdough English Muffins! | Perfect Homemade Sourdough English Muffin Recipe
More from Buttered Side Up: butteredsideupblog.com — cozy from-scratch recipes, tons of sourdough

If the embed doesn't load, watch it directly on YouTube here.

Why we picked this one

Store-bought English muffins are a tragedy we're all quietly living with. Pale, rubbery, zero nooks, and a "sourdough flavor" that was basically vinegar perfume. So when a video promises muffins that are light, chewy, and genuinely full of nooks and crannies — with no rings, no rolling pin, and no bakery required — it gets our full attention.

This one earns the title. The whole method is built around a deceptively simple insight: the transfer is where most English muffins die. Those puffy, risen muffins are delicate, and clumsily shoving them into a hot skillet knocks out the air you've been cultivating for hours. The parchment-square-and-cornmeal system shown here lets you flip them straight onto the griddle like a pro — zero de-puffing, zero sticking panic.

But here's the detail I wish someone had told me sooner: the dough is supposed to be sticky. Most enriched doughs fight you toward smoothness; this lean dough (no eggs, just water, butter, honey, flour, and salt) stays wet and tacky, and that wetness is exactly what creates the open, airy nooks. Resist the urge to flour your way out of it. Your hands will look like a mess. That's how you know it's right.

Erica of Buttered Side Up is a natural for this pick — a cookbook author and pure educator with a calm, no-drama teaching style that makes a 5-minute video feel like baking alongside a friend. She covers the float test, the overnight cold ferment, griddle technique, AND the oven finish that guarantees no gummy middles. No gatekeeping, no gear worship — just a recipe that's been tested into the ground.

What you'll learn

• The no-de-puff transfer method: cornmeal-dusted parchment squares carry each risen muffin straight to the griddle, so the air stays in the muffin and not on your counter.
• How the griddle-plus-oven combo works: 5-8 minutes per side on a cast iron skillet for the golden crust, then 10 minutes in the oven to cook through — no raw middles, no scorched bottoms.
• The 20-hour cold ferment timeline: one hour at room temp, overnight in the fridge, then a final puffy rise. The fridge does the flavor and nook development while you sleep.

Our two cents to go with it

Two things worth knowing before you press play:

1. The stand mixer is doing real work here. Fifteen minutes of kneading sounds like a lot, but this wet dough needs that gluten development to hold its structure — and then you mostly leave it alone. This is a perfect lazy-day project: mix, rest, fridge, nap, shape, bake.

2. Split with a fork, not a knife. Okay, Erica says she does both — but if you want the iconic cratered nooks, fork-splitting is the move. Stab a fork around the sides, wiggle, pull apart. Those craggy peaks catch melted butter like tiny pools, and because each side is griddled, the butter doesn't drip through.

And if watching this makes you realize your starter is the bottleneck — not active enough, not doubling reliably — well, that's the whole reason ours exists. It arrives dehydrated, wakes up in a few days with dead-simple instructions, and gives you the vigorous, predictable rise that recipes like this one are counting on. Grab your Squirrelly Girl Starter here 🐿️

Loved this video? Go tell Buttered Side Up — like and subscribe on YouTube so they keep making them.

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