“Crumpets are a superb vehicle with which to transport butter to the tummy”. mmmm. however E.H. Ruddock M.D. finds “. . . crumpets are very indigestible’. (Essentials of Diet, London 1879)
But confusion reigns – is it a pikelet or is it a crumpet? Florence White, writing in 1932 claims ‘a pikelet is only the Yorkshire term for crumpet’, and again ‘In Derbyshire and Yorkshire pikelets mean crumpets, the ones with the holes.’ However that doyen of English cooking (and baking), Elizabeth David says “It is the confining of batter in rings or hoops and the consequent slow cooking necessitated which makes English crumpets distinctive from pikelets and other yeast raised griddles cakes or pancakes”. (English Bread and Yeast Cookery, London 1977)
I’ve always liked crumpet. Hot. Lots of butter, wonderful honey and licking of fingers. And until now I’ve never known how to make them. Ms David provided me with the answer. And I am prepared to share it with you, on the proviso that I get first dibs on any you make. She starts with her search for the answer for she admits “my own efforts (at making crumpets) certainly came in the category of ‘very bad ones'”
In 1937 Walter Banfield wrote “Provided suitable flour is used, these honeycomb, labyrinthine structures are fairly simple to make. The idea that crumpets are difficult is not uncommon because if flour unsuitable for the process is used grotesque, unfair creations result. That is one either makes good crumpets or very bad ones.”
Ms David again: “. . . using a batter very similar to the muffin dough but much more liquid – note: the first is a dough, the second a batter – and adding at the stirring down stage, a little extra warm water in which a small quantity of bicarbonate of soda has been dissolved, the mixture works out just about right.”
Now for the recipe.
Ingredients: Flour (preferably half and half strong plain and ordinary household) 450 g, yeast 15g, milk and wage mixed 550 to 575g, salt 1 teaspoon, sugar 1 tablespoon, oil 2 table spoons. For the second mixing: bicarbonate of soda 1/2 teaspoon, warm water 150g. For greasing the griddle and rings, a scrap of butter.
Method: Warm the flour in an earthenware bowl in a low oven for 5 minutes. Warm the oil, milk, water and sugar to blood heat. Use a little of this to cream the yeast.
Mix the salt with the warmed flour, stir in the yeast, pour in the liquid, stir the batter very well and vigorously (Walter Bamfield instructs “attack the batter with vivacious turbulence”) until it is smooth and elastic. Cover the bowl and leave the batter to rise at room temperature until the whole surface is a mass of bubbles and the mixture looks as if it were about to break. This will take 1.5 to 2 hours.
Forestall the natural falling of the batter by beating it down yourself with a wooden spoon.
Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in the warm water and stir it into the batter. Cover the bowl and leave the batter to recover, for about 30 minutes. This time put it in a rather warmer place, unless you need to delay the cooking of the crumpets, in which case use cold water for dissolving the bicarb and remove the bowl to a cool place.
To cook the crumpets, grease the griddle very lightly, and have the rings ready (modern crumpet rings are 100mm diameter and 12 mm deep) also very lightly greased.
Put four rings on the griddle, pour enough batter into each to come almost to the top. Let them cook very gently until the top surfaces have formed a skin, which will take 7 to 10 minutes. By this time there should also be a mass of tiny holes. If the holes haven’t appeared, the batter is too thick. Add more warm water or milk before cooking the next batch.
Once the crumpets have set it is easy to slip the rings off, and flip the crumpets over. They will need only 3 minutes more cooking; crumpets are supposed to be rather pallid and flabby looking but very holly on the top surface, pale gold and smooth on the underside.
Keep the cooked strumpets (bloody auto correct!) crumpets warm in a folded cloth while the rest are cooked.
The quantities given will make eight to ten crumpets. . . . Personally I find crumpets edible only when freshly cooked, warm and soaked in plenty of butter.
Elizabeth David – a woman after my own heart (attack). From her English Bread and Yeast Cookery London 1979 (Reprinted 2010)
Enjoy your crumpets ‘soaked in plenty of butter’ and with the best honey.
Cheers
Cecil Poole.