Crumpets

I love a toasted crumpet - ideally with a little cheese on top. The Best of Mrs Beetons Afternoon Tea includes a recipe for crumpets, so, with my crumpet rings in hand, I attempted to make my own from scratch. It wasn't as easy as I anticipated.

Like the Hot Cross Buns, I started by blooming some dried yeast - well, trying to bloom some yeast. The weather wasn't as warm as last week and the yeast refused to start bubbling in the warm milky mixture. I eventually tried 4 attempts before the addition of a pinch of sugar finally woke a batch up from their slumber.

I had become quite frustrated by this point, so the beating in of the flour to the yeast mixture was quite theraputic. I left it to rise for an hour under our kitchen sink (which happens to sit next to a boiler so its toasty warm.)

After an hour, I added some dissolved bicarb to assist with the bubbling, then it went back under the sink to prove some more.

The resulting 'batter' as the recipe calls it, was less like batter, more like a wet stringy dough. Spooning it into the greased crumpet rings was nearly impossible because it didn't slip off the spoon easily and it wouldn't spread out to fill the ring. The recipe didn't state how long to cook for or even how big a spoon should be dolloped into the crumpet ring.

My first attempt came out tall, but I wasn't sure it was cooked the whole way through. I also burned the bottom because I didn't know how long to leave them and I was expecting to see bubbles bursting through the top. The next few I tried making much smaller and even stopped using the crumpet rings alltogether.

Eventually, I'd made 10 crumpets of various sizes. The internal texture turned out to be pretty similar to store-bought crumpets and the flavour was exactly like the ones you can buy. I'm not sure how to fix the dough consistency to ensure they spread better, and the overall appearance of these was not very appealing, but they were tasty and we had a few for lunch anyway.

Crumpets

200g strong white flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp sugar

100ml milk

2 tsp dried yeast

pinch of bicarbonate of soda

fat for frying

Sift the flour, salt and sugar into a large bowl. Place the milk in a saucepan, add 125ml water and warm gently. The mixture should be hand hot. Pour the mixture into a small bowl, sprinkle the dried yeast on top and leave for 10-15 minutes or until frothy (at this point I also added a pinch of sugar to help them along.)

Add the yeast mixture to the flour and beat to a smooth batter. Cover the bowl and leave in a warm place for about 45 minutes or until the batter has doubled in bulk.

Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in a tablespoon of warm water; beat into the batter. Cover and leave to rise again for 20 minutes.

Heat a griddle or heavy-bottomed frying pan over medium heat, then grease it when hot. Grease metal crumpet rings or poaching rings about 3 inches in diameter. Place the rings on the hot griddle, pour (or dollop) a spoonful of batter into each to cover the base thinkly and cook until the top is set and the bubbles have burst.

Remove the rings and turn the crumpets over. Cook the other side for 2-3 minutes only , until firm but barely coloured. Cool the crumpets on a wire rack. Serve toasted with butter (or left over pulled pork like we did! YUM!)