I love a crumpet; you can get a lot more topping per square inch on a crumpet. But exactly how true to form are the shop bought versions? Are they supposed to be like that; rubbery, with hundreds of holes on the top and a pancake bottom? And apparently there is a brown wholemeal version but I’ve never seen one, at least not round these parts.
So my first port of call is Constance Spry, and it was very nearly my last. Her writing is from an altogether different era, which although makes for an entertaining read I unfortunately fell short at owning a girdle. Why that might be necessary for cooking a crumpet one only knows. Delia’s recipe is all but identical in both method and ingredients, so I went with that, but swapped the plain flour for wholemeal.
The method is simple and worked a treat. There’s not a lot to go wrong, nor is a crumpet technically demanding, plus you can have the whole thing done from start to finish in under an hour. The texture of my home-made version was much softer and altogether less rubbery than the shop bought version, very similar in taste but with considerably fewer holes which was a little disappointing.
A re-run with white flour (instead of wholemeal) and fractionally less salt gave a much better result, both in taste and structure. And this is it:
Ingredients
(Makes 8 x 10cm)
225g strong white flour (or brown/wholemeal)
¾ teaspoon salt
275ml milk + 55ml water
I x tablespoon dried yeast
1 x teaspoon caster sugar
Butter for greasing
Mix the flour with the salt in a mixing bowl and set to one side.
In a small pan, heat the milk with the water until lukewarm. Mix the yeast with the sugar in a Pyrex jug and pour in the warm milk. Give that a good stir to dissolve the sugar, then leave it for 15 mins for the yeast to start frothing and foaming.
Once a good head of froth has formed on the milk, make a well in the centre of the flour and add the milk, mixing in to make a smooth batter. Cover this with a tea towel and leave it to ‘rise’ for about 45 mins.
To cook the crumpets, grease 3 or 4 metals rings, depending on how many will fit in the base of your largest, heaviest frying pan. Heat the pan over a medium heat, then add the rings to heat through and a knob of butter in each ring.
Pour in the crumpet mix to 2/3rds of the way up each ring (they will continue to expand as they cook). Cook the crumpets without moving them for 5 – 8 minutes or until bubbles start appearing on the surface. Remove the rings (they won’t collapse) and then flip each one over with a fish slice to cook the underside briefly.
The crumpets are ready to eat straight away; alternatively leave them to cool on a wire rack then store in an airtight container (or freeze for up to three months). Reheat in the toaster.