I love crumpets. Something about their holey texture that soaks up butter & honey is just magical. Mmmmmm mmmm! However crumpets, along with english muffins, remained in my mind for many years something I *had* to buy at the store, something I couldn’t make at home. Well, I was wrong about the english muffins (which I can now make at home) and I was wrong about crumpets!
My partner (let’s call him MrBee for now) seems to be allergic to a preservative that is in a LOT of pre-prepared breads and bread products that you can buy at the supermarket. This means we went through a big period of baking our own bread. Luckily for us, the bakery I work in doesn’t use this preservative so we get all our bread from work now. But we don’t make tortillas, or english muffins, pita bread, wrap bread or crumpets. We’ve found a substitute for our tortillas, but english muffins? Nope. Pita bread? Nope. Crumpets? I’m sure you get the picture.
So, when we were craving crumpets the other day, I had to face facts: if we wanted crumpets, I had to make them.
And guess what – they weren’t hard!!! In fact, the only “hard” thing about them is the waiting for them!
Mmmm crumpets
Mmmmm. Nothing better on a cold wet (as in we live inside the clouds somedays LOL) wintery afternoon than crumpets with honey & tea!
I got my recipe today from Taste.com.au and it worked really well.
- 2 tsp (7g/1 sachet) dried yeast
- 2 tsp caster sugar
- 1/2 cup (125ml) warm milk
- 1/2 cup (125ml) warm water
- 1 1/2 cups (225g) plain flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup (125ml) water, extra
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Combine the yeast & sugar in the warm water & warm milk. Let rest for 10 minutes until foamy.
LizzieBee note! (I boiled my kettle, measured half a cup of water into my pyrex jug and then topped it up with milk. Made a lovely warm mixture, which I poured my sugar/yeast mix in. ) After 10 minutes the mixture had foamed up really nicely. I must make a note here: I’ve stopped using white sugar in my cooking and don’t have any in the house. We’ve got raw sugar for our coffee and I use brown sugar in my cooking now. I didn’t find that my substitution of brown sugar made any difference in the mixture, so feel free to substitute that for the caster sugar as well if you would like!
In a separate bowl, combine the flour & salt. Make a well in the centre and add the milky-yeast mixture. Stir until well combined. Cover with cling wrap and place in a draught-free warm place for 1 hour, or until doubled in size.
LizzieBee Note! Yes, it means stir. I did it with a fork. Feel free to use a spoon 
It is a REALLY wet mix, it’s not meant to be kneaded, and when it’s well combined, it looked like a gloopy mess. We also don’t have cling wrap in the house, so I popped it in a plastic bag, and wrapped a tea towel around the whole thing. Why the tea towel? Well, I had turned my own on for 5minutes to provide the “warm draught-free place”, since our apartment sits at about 12-13C during the winter, and is not conducive to making any sort of dough rise! Well, I didn’t want the plastic to melt in the oven, so it got wrapped in a tea towel. That, and to keep the warmth around the bowl.
Combine the extra water and bicarbonate of soda in a jug. Use a balloon whisk to whisk the flour mixture until it deflates to the original size. Gradually add the water mixture, whisking well between each addition, until well combined and smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside for 30 minutes to rest.
Ready to Fry!
LizzieBee Note! Wear an APRON when you do this! You need to whisk in each bit of water gently to start combining it, but then vigorously to get it combined WELL. You start whisking that baby before it starts combining and you are going to get MESS all over your jumper and your kitchen and your floor. What? I’m just saying!! If you’ve got a stand mixer, I’m sure using that with the balloon whisk attachment would work really well. I just did it by hand, and I was glad that I’ve got some arm muscles these days!
Brush a large non-stick frying pan with oil to grease. Brush 5 egg rings with oil to lightly grease. Place frying pan over medium-low heat. Pour 2 tbs of mixture into the egg rings in pan and cook for 5 minutes or until bubbles rise to the surface and base is golden and top is set. Turn and cook for 1 minute or until lightly golden. Transfer to a wire rack. Continue in 2 more batches with remaining batter.
Look at these babies!!
LizzieBee Note! I used a 1/4 cup measuring cup to transfer my batter into the egg rings. Made the transfer nice and easy and done in one move. I had to buy some big egg rings to do these, and halfway through the first batch, lifted one up to see how they were going underneath. HAHA they were non-stick, so with the oil that I’d sprayed in the pan and over the rings, the crumpet fell right out of that ring and upside down, half on top of another crumpet. Nice work LizzieBee! Anyway, the point of this was that I didn’t brush on oil, I used a spray oil (just a canola-based one) and it worked nicely.
Crumpets & Tea!
So worth the waiting time for the mixture to rise and then set in the pan. They are deeeelicious!
