Homemade Sausage and Egg 'McMuffins'

I was never much of an early riser. Even as a kid, I struggled to make it on time to my 10am dance classes on Saturdays. So it probably doesn't surprise you that breakfast has never really been my thing- by the time I wake up, breakfast time is pretty much over!!

Occassionally I'd wake up early enough to fit an early breakfast at McDonalds before dance class but that was so rare that we probably only ever once every year (: Whilst my childhood breakfast mostly consisted of pancakes and hashbrowns, I found myself turning to McMuffins instead when I started a habit of stopping by McDonalds in the morning during high school. Cheap, tasty, satisfying and so good that I could have one everyday without getting sick of it!

Unfortunately, I can never really wake up in time to get to Macca's before 10:30 these days (if only they served them all day like some Macca's overseas!) so I set out to create my own copycat version of my favourite sausage and egg McMuffins!

The formula is as simple as it seems- a muffin sliced in half and toasted with melted cheese, sausage and egg in between and a squiggle of sauce. The only problem I had was finding the 'sausage patty' to put in the middle so I just squeezed the meat out of some breakfast sausages I got from the supermarket and shaped them into a patty. I couldn't find any American cheese either so I just used normal plastic cheese, though it doesn't taste quite the same....

It's a bit time consuming at first but after making it for breakfast for a whole week a while you get the hang of it, and it only takes a short while to make an amazingly satisfying breakfast! I served mine with hashbrowns (the frozen ones from the supermarket) which I chucked in the oven before I started making the muffins and pan fried lightly before serving. Thumbs up to my sister who made me some cute hashbrown bags to make it look even more like a macca's brekky! (:

Homemade Sausage and Egg 'McMuffins' Recipe
Makes 8

English Muffins
Recipe from here

10 ounces (2.25 Cups) unbleached bread flour
1/2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
3/4 Teaspoons salt
1 1/4 Teaspoons instant yeast
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups buttermilk (or milk)
Cornmeal for forming and dusting
Spray oil for cooking

1. Stir together the flour, sugar, salt, and yeast in a large bowl. Mix that all together and then stir in the butter.Then add in your milk until the dough forms a ball. I used buttermilk and needed about 1 1/2 cups to get to the right consistency.The dough should be very sticky.
2. Once the dough has fermented, it will be very loose and stretchy. When you are ready to make the muffins, get your hands wet so the dough doesn’t stick to them and pull off about a sixth of the dough. Shape it into a round muffin and place it on a baking sheet heavily sprinkled with cornmeal. (Note: I shaped mine using an egg ring so that it would be roughly the same size as my fried egg- this meant that they I ended up making about 8 muffins from the recipe) The cornmeal will stick to the muffin and give it some shape. Sprinkle more cornmeal on top of the muffins and cover them with a damp towel. Let them rise for a second 90 minutes and they will be puffed and ready to cook. This second rise is what gives the muffins their traditional craggy look.
3. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. We will finish the muffins in the oven. Then get out your largest pan or griddle and spray or wipe it with oil. Turn your stovetop on medium-high heat and get your pan hot. Spray some oil (or wipe some oil) in the pan. You want to make sure these don’t stick, but you don’t need pools of oil for that. When the pan is hot, put each muffin down. The dough will spread out and start to puff up. Don’t crowd the muffins too much. You don’t want them touching.
4. These muffins will brown quickly, but they won’t burn for some time. Cook them on the first side for about 5-6 minutes. When they are a medium brown, give them a flip. Cook for 5 minutes on the other side and then transfer them immediately to a sheet pan in the pre-heated oven. The griddle cooks the outside and gives the muffins their distinctive crunch and flatness, but the insides of the muffins are still pretty raw. Cook them in the oven for 8-10 minutes to solve that problem.
5. Then let them cool before cutting into them so the structure can set.

Making the McMuffins
8 muffins, each cut in half  (from the recipe above)
4-6 sausages (I used the 'breakfast sausages' from woolies which are a mix of beef and lamb)
8 slices of processed (plastic) cheese
8 eggs
Butter or margarine
Tomato Sauce (or barbecue sauce if you prefer)

1. Remove the sausage meat from their skins and shape them into  thin round patties. You want them to be slightly wider than the size of your muffins as they will shrink slightly when cooked. Cook them over a fry-pan until they are cooked through (this will take around 2-3 minutes each side depending on the thickeness). You may want to work in batches of 3-4 at a time depending on the size of your pan.
2. In a separate pan, heat some oil. Cover the insides of four egg rings with plenty of oil and place them on the pan. Crack an egg into each and then break the yolk. Once the egg whites are about half cooked through, turn each egg over, then remove the ring (I use chopsticks to pull the ring off, but I'm sure there's other ways!). Cook for about a minute longer then remove from pan.
3. Lightly butter your muffins then heat on pan until golden brown.
4. Place a (hot) muffin half onto you plate, quickly top with a slice of cheese, then a (hot) sausage patty (it is important that these are hot as they will melt the cheese). Squeeze a bit of tomato sauce over the sausage patty then top with an egg and another muffin half.
5. Enjoy!