I Love Crumpets!

Anglo-Saxons, I love you too. For inventing the crumpet, I am eternally grateful.

Crumpets are very English, although there are Welsh and Scottish versions that have variations to make them slightly different. I haven’t yet met a person that does not like crumpets. Speak up if you don’t! The little rounds of holey loveliness combine perfectly with butter, so that the steamy surface of the crumpet melts and then draws in butter to it’s very core. The result is a hot, slightly crispy crumpet, with a soft, fluffy and buttery centre. How do you cook yours? I used the toaster for ages. I then got tired of having to stick a knife in the toaster as the slightly fatter ones got stuck. Dangerous I know. I have now become a grill convert. There is greater control over the level of toasting, you can see what is happening to them and they won’t get stuck. This is a serious topic.

Shop-bought crumpets can be a little rubbery sometimes. Once the butter is in, however, I can’t say I am likely to complain. Even tried a crumpet with mature cheddar slightly melted on top? Delicious. To continue my crumpet journey, I was going to have to try to make my own. I’ve heard its not too difficult. I had all the ingredients, and I chose a recipe on the baking mad website, partly because they named the yeast that I had in the cupboard and I’m not totally au fait with the types of yeast out there yet.

It was a simple enough process. Mix wet and dry ingredients, leave to rise and double in size, cook. The doubling in size took a while. Even whilst I was cooking the mixture, it was still getting bigger. I had bought myself  couple of metal rings for potential crumpet making. You can make them without rings, but they will spread and flatten instead of being tall and thick. The only problem I had with cooking them was that not enough bubbles broke the surface, and that I burnt the bottom of a few of them. Bubbles were definitely present inside the crumpet, but just didn’t rise up to the surface enough. I helped the process along by breaking the surface of some of the bubbles which worked. I also found that if I left the crumpets to cool, and then popped them under the grill when I was ready to eat them, that the texture was less doughy and drier inside. The recipe made around 15 crumpets!

Crumpets Recipe

450g strong white bread flour

1 sachet easy-bake yeast (7g)

300ml water

300ml milk

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1. Warm the milk and the water together.

2. Place all of the ingredients into a bowl and beat until smooth.

3. Leave until the mixture is frothy and doubled in size.

4. Grease and heat a heavy frying pan or griddle and 9 cm rings and half fill with the mixture.

5. Maintaining a moderate heat, cook the crumpets for 5 minutes until the mixture bubbles.

6. Reduce the heat until the bubbles have burst.

7. Turn the crumpets over and cook for another 2 minutes.

8. Serve immediately, or allow to cool and toast when required.

Crumpets with butter

Crumpets with cheese

I like crumpets with a big cup of tea