Crumpet Recipes

Looking for the best crumpet recipe or a long lost one? Just take a leap of faith to try two of the best ones!

Beliefs are major supporting pillars of human existence, at least for now. Believe in something, simply means that we think, that particular statement we talk or think about, is true.

Although nowadays science takes even bigger share of carrying the responsibilities of truth, and most of the time, evidence-based observations are required when decisions are taken, with society wide implications, living a life, based on beliefs alone, is still acceptable in many communities.

Of course, many times when we talk about beliefs, religion pops instantly to our mind but less controversial subjects, that we take for granted too, are much more woven into our everyday life and even harder to get rid of them.

Our deep-rooted belief of getting sick from cold weather or humanity’s inability to exist with wet hair, can’t seem to be pulled out of the shared conscience of society, even though a global pandemic tried to teach us about how viruses and bacteria work.

We also managed to sprinkle beliefs into so plainly scientific subjects as cooking, making an utter mess in the process.

Proofing yeast with sugar, that actually inhabits yeast growth, is as pointless as activating it, but we’ve been doing it for so long that we can’t believe it would work without, until we try it at least once.

Not to mention the curious habit of adding baking powder to anything that we bake, even when there is no supporting structure that would hold the released gases. At least, when we add baking soda, it does something else than disappear in thin air but few of us know and even less cares what.

Questioning recipes is like raising the walls of ignorance that hold back the immeasurable flow of knowledge. Unfortunately, not everybody is ready to stand on their own and prefer walls to freedom, much like crumpets do.

Although crumpets history is as sticky and murky as its dough itself, its modern name most likely derived from the metal cramps that people used to retain the dough during cooking.

Crumpet’s recipes were wide and many, until commercial food production introduced their ideas of crumpets. Since then, most crumpets are made equal, except, of course, in the confines of the dark corners of our kitchens where we can still make them whatever way we like.

Sure, if we got used to the crumpets sold by shops all around then the experimentation will not be about finding the best crumpet but to make the ones we got used to.

Luckily, the Warburton’s recipe (it’s a British baking firm for those in the unknown) of true shop sold crumpets are revealed for those who can’t get them anymore, yet can’t live without them. To get the exact same, a bit rubbery textured, yet holey crumpets, we only need to follow the recipe to the letter, especially when it’s calling for water.

As mentioned before, since crumpets history is rather obscure, so are their regional recipes which sometimes call for buttermilk and baking soda as their rising agent while others substituted water with milk.

Forget to put on the rings, as it was done before industrialized manufacturing processes made cheap metal rings an everyday item, and we got a take on crumpets that look rather like pancakes. (Yes, we can make pancakes into crumpets using crumpet rings.)

If we throw some bacon rendered fat instead of butter or any other cooking oil into the mix, we’ll have more than marginally different take on the resulting crumpets that many of us want to imagine for their breakfast.

Yet, if we believe in them, crumpets can be so much more than just holey bread baked on the griddle.

Ingredients

Holey crumpets

1¼ cup / 150g Plain white flour
⅞ cup / 200ml Water
½ teaspoon / 3g Salt
1 teaspoon / 6g Baking powder
1 teaspoon / 2.5g Dried yeast

Tasty crumpets

1¼ cup / 150g Plain white flour
⅞ cup / 200ml Water
½ teaspoon / 3g Salt
1 teaspoon / 6g Baking soda
1 teaspoon / 2.5g Dried yeast

Kitchen utensils

Crumpet rings

How to make crumpets

Mix, flour, water, salt, baking powder, and yeast in a big bowl until uniform mixture. Cover the bowl and place it to a 68°F – 81°F /20°C – 27°C corner for at least half an hour to rise.
Heat a frying pan and rings to medium – low. Grease the crumpet rings with cooking oil or butter. We can use any metal ring here, some have success with rings made out of tuna tins so don’t invest in crumpet rings before falling in love with them.
Drop some batter in, about halfway to the rings. It’s crucial to have the rings hot enough before spooning the batter in otherwise some batter may escape or badly sticks to the rings.
Let them bake slowly. About half way through of our 20 minutes journey, the holes start to appear and continue to populate the surface of our holey crumpet. We can turn the heat up a bit to bring the cooking time down but that needs a bit of experimenting with our particular cookware and cooktop. Don’t expect anything from the tasty one though and bless every one that cherish the light of the kitchen.
If we make more than one crumpet then mostly likely we’ll see that the outer rims of the crumpets aren’t baking as well as the inner sides. Rotate the crumpets for even baking and use the opportunity to check the done-ness of their bottom. If the bottom is scorched or burnt then turn the heat down for the next batch.
Once the top solidifies which will be indicated by color change too, remove the rings. They are hot and probably somewhat sticky too so we may need some additional tools.
Flip the freed crumpets, add some butter and toast them until golden brown. Remove any residue from the crumpet ring before using it for the next batch and don’t be sad for the missing holes, it could be worse.