Craving a Crumpet

I woke up craving crumpets.  I must have been revisiting Seattle in my sleep.  It's been 15 years since I lived there, but when I feel the desert heat rising like it is now, and my skin drying up like an old prune, I long for the place I grew up.

There was a little shop across from the Pike Place Market that served the most wonderful crumpets with a variety of toppings.  It wasn't a restaurant, just a little tea and gourmet foods shop with no real place to sit and eat, but oh, those crumpets!  The smell of the teas and spices was so wonderful, and the crumpets were so delicious, I didn't mind standing in the long lines waiting for my turn to order.  And the lines were always long.  I wonder if that shop is still there...

Anyway, seeing as how my cross-country trip won't be happening THIS summer, I decided to try making my own crumpets. 

Anyone who has ever had a real crumpet could never again be satisfied with those disgusting imitation "English Muffins" sold in grocery stores.  YUCK!  But I've never tried to make my own crumpets.  This could either be an interesting challenge, or a strange chemistry experiment.  Me and yeast, together in the same room.  Hmmmm...

I found a place to buy crumpet rings (here's a source in Australia that has handles, which I would prefer, but the international shipping would cost as much as the rings!), and good instructions and the following recipe from World Recipes: English Crumpets:

Ingredients:
7 1/8 ounces Strong white flour
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Sugar
3/8 cup Milk
2 1/8 teaspoons Dried yeast
1 pn Bicarb of Soda
Fat for frying

Strong white flour is the type bakers use for bread dough. High in gluten in makes a good risen batter or dough.  Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl. Gently warm the milk to just hand hot and sprinkle on the dried yeast. Leave to stand for 10 or 15 minutes until frothy. Add the yeast mix to flour and beat to a smooth batter. Cover with a damp cloth and leave to stand in a warm place for 45 minutes, or the batter has doubled in size. Dissolve the bicarb in 15ml of warm water and beat it into the batter. Cover again and leave to stand for a further 20 minutes. Place a 3 inch metal pastry cutter into a hot greased fry pan. Pour in about table spoon of the batter to cover the base thinly. Cook until the top is set and the bubbles have burst. Remove it from the ring, turn the crumpet over and cook the other side for 2 or 3 minutes only. It should just colour slightly. Cool on a wire rack.

There's another recipe here, and another here, but they're all very similar.  The only strange one I found was called a Scottish Crumpet, and from the description, it sounds more like what I would call a crepe.  I think some Scots cook got her recipes a little mixed up there.

Wish me luck!

Comments

[Sarah]

Good grief people, get over it! Each to their own breakfast preference with out rubbishing the others I say. Breakfast is too early in the morning to start slanging each other off about who's version is better that who's. Crumpets in all their forms, muffins and crepes all have their place at the breakfast table and its not for throwin at each other.

[Gwen]

Crêpe is a much later french word, the original word would be krampouezh from the common language which was spoken by the inhabitants of the now British Isles, people who fled from invaders, some ended in Brittany, France where the language is still spoken and is very similar to Welsh and probably what was the old Cornish language - there is very little similarity now between the Scottish gaelic, Irish gaelic and Welsh and Breton. Crêpes are a speciality of Brittany, France.

[Scotscook]

April 20th post is rather arrogant in its statement, "The only strange one I found was called a Scottish Crumpet, and from the description, it sounds more like what I would call a crepe. I think some Scots cook got her recipes a little mixed up there."

There is nothing strange about Scottish crumpets and there is also nothing mixed up about the recipe.

Scottish crumpets bear no resemblance to English crumpets because they are not related at all. They are as the writer hints related to the crepe.
The Scots and the French have a history of allience going back to about 1148. We have many words in Scots(not some mis-spoken dialect of English but a language in its own right), which come form French and we have many dishes which are also based on French dishes.

The Scots and the English have, historically,very little in common. Our crumpets are a case in point.

[Rhona]

This recipe is not workable. 3/8 cup of milk/ I just used ingredients to the letter and that much milk made a ball of tacky flour I found I needed to put in a whole lot more. You cannot have made crumpets with this recipe as stands.

By the way for the obviously scottish biased post at the top. No a real ENGLISH (not UK) crumpet does look like that picture and I am english born and bred and have never eaten a crumpet with jam and cream. I think the scottish crumpet is what we refer to as a pikelet. Flatter with holes in it.

[Jazze]

Like you, I love crumpets. However, the things sold as english muffins in stores are not poor imitations of crumpets. Although similar, english muffins and crumpet are not the same. So what you see as english muffins in the store are exactly what they are.

[Monica from Brazil]

Hi, I have just bought some round cookies cutters to use for crumpets. And I intend to make the recipe listed in the site. Wish me luck because I am craving for crumpets and there are nothing even similar here in Brazil. If you wanted something from my country let me know.

[Irene]

Re: Crumpet rings - A small tuna can is the perfect size for crumpets - use a can opener and remove both ends and voila! you have a crumpet ring much cheaper than buying the real thing.

If anyone has a successful recipe I would love to hear from them. I recently made a batch of crumpets but they tasted too yeasty. Texture and thickness was good though. I am from the uk now living in the middle east and I really miss Warburtons crumpet.

[Peter from MN]

The link for the Crumpet rings is not good - what are people using to fry them in?

[Christine]

Jim! I don't have any recipes for veal marsala ... yet. Maybe a kind reader has some thoughts. Try this link for some ideas: http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,veal_marsala_mushrooms,FF.html

Good luck!

[JIM]

I've sending out asking any af your redaeres that if they know a SMOKING VEAL MARSAL???
The Veal has aleady ponded btwn.to sheets, dazzle me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

mAGIC cUSINE

[JAMES lONDON]

sTILL WATTING FOR THE SPECTACULAR vEAL mARSALA
mSCAL RECIPE!

ps: MY PIECE OF CRAP COMPUTER IS MAKING TYPO'S WITH IT'S OWN MIND AND ALL THE TYPO'S ARE COMPUTER MISTAKE.

[Jim]

I making a Vael Marsala entree' DO YOU HAVE ANY SMOKING RECIPES FOR THIS DISH?
i'VE PONDED THE VEAL BTWN. PAPER IT'S READY TO BE BROWNED
i NEED SOME ONE TO THROW IN A HOOK, dO i GAET THE FOND FROM THE BROWNIG AND DEGLACE WITH
mARSALA WINE.WHAT TYPE OF MUSHROOMS ?

[Morrigan]

I live near Seattle, and go to Pike Market fairly regularly. Yes, the Crumpet Shop is still there. If you want to call them, their number is 206-682-1598.

[Mary]

No, the illustration of a crumpet is NOTHING like the REAL crumpets eaten in the U.K. The crumpets shown look like a cross between a :dropped scone" and a muffin. A REAL crumpet is lfatter, and a wonderful toasty brown that you can roll up with Devon cream and jam inside...and yes, they are Scottish crumpets that look like a crepe, only with a little more body, shall we say... and they didn't get their recipes mixed up. You will find "Scottish crumpets" all over U.K., as well as the finer French crepes, both of which look NOTHING like the illustration here...which looks very stodgy in comparison.