Homemade Crumpets | Pete Bakes

You could be forgiven for believing that all I do is drink, but I’ve been known to venture into the kitchen as well. Especially if it involves yeast, and producing something that can be toasted and buttered. Ok, so technically crumpets aren’t baked but it’s close enough and ‘Pete Griddles’ doesn’t sound so good.

A comment from a friend on twitter a few weeks ago made me realise that I hadn’t cooked crumpets in a long time and unusually, rather than just saying “ooh I should make those myself” and then remaining glued to my keyboard, I ventured downstairs and dusted off my cookbook and discovered that I even had all the ingredients in the cupboard.

The cookbook in question is one of those ‘must have’ books; it’s a tiny little thing with less than 50 pages to it, and I only bought it originally because it had a recipe for Aberdeen Butteries – however it’s filled with all sorts of other yummy bready delights too, including crumpets. See, even the book thinks they’re baked.

Aberdeen Butteries, by the way, are a sort of Scottish take on croissants with added lard, which virtually deep-fry themselves in the oven. They’re probably not terribly good for you, but they taste divine and they’re almost worth all the fiddling about that making them requires.

Crumpets, on the other hand, are incredibly quick and easy to make – especially if, like me, you tend to go through recipes and remove anything that looks a bit complicated. It talks about heating milk and dissolving the sugar in it and it calls for fresh yeast but in keeping with my “reduce all recipes to standard Waitrose pack sizes” policy, I improved it. And I also shrank it, from experience.

Crumpets

Ingredients

  • 4 oz plain flour
  • 4 oz bread flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • ½ pint milk and water, 50/50 mix - warmed slightly in the microwave, to body temperature
  • 1 tbsp vegetable oil
  • ½ tbsp sugar
  • 1 packet dried yeast
  • ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda

Notes

The imperial measurments used here are a sign of the ancientness of my cookbook!

Instructions

  • Throw everything but the bicarbonate of soda into a mixer and whisk for 5 minutes or so until it’s a smooth and slightly elastic batter.
  • Put some clingfilm over the top of the bowl and leave it wherever you leave your bread to rise for an hour or two until it’s frothy and “about to collapse”. I have to say I’ve always found that sort of instruction in recipes about as useful as “bake until almost done”. How do you know when something is about to collapse? I certainly don’t; I leave it until it looks properly frothy and I can’t be bothered to wait any longer.
  • Now add the bicarbonate of soda and stir it well in. This will knock all the air out as well and leave you with a slightly bubbly batter that’s the perfect consistency for pouring. Put aside to rise while you rummage around in kitchen drawers looking for those really useful cooking rings you know you bought and must be in there somewhere.
  • Get a good, heavy non-stick frying pan and start it heating over a medium heat. I don’t bother with any oil in the pan itself; the base of the crumpets don’t seem to ever stick. They will, however, glue themselves to your rings given half a chance – I have a shallow dish of oil and run the rings through the oil to get them well coated all the way around the inside on every batch. You’ll thank me later.
  • Oil the rings, place them in the frying pan, making sure they’re lying flat and aren’t on a slope running up the side of the frying pan (otherwise the batter will escape under the ring and you’ll be making very long winded pancakes). I find it easiest to use a ladle to pour about a centimetre of batter into each ring.
  • Now wait. Don’t be tempted to poke or jiggle anything. In around 5 minutes (it feels more like twenty, but it honestly isn’t) you’ll see the top of the crumpets start to dry out and start looking, well, like crumpets around the edge.
  • The ‘crumpetness’ will creep slowly in from the edges; once at least the edge is dry, you can safely remove the rings. I lift them off with our awesome oven gloves; they can sometimes stick – especially at the bottom – so a knife can help release them. I’ve found a flexible butter knife works best without the risk of slicing a lump out of your crumpet.
  • Once the top is dry, or at least almost dry, flip the crumpet over to brown the top for a minute or so. Take it out of the pan and let it cool on a cooling rack; if you put it straight onto a plate the bottom will get soggy.
  • If you can bear to wait, let it cool before toasting it (to make the top lovely and crunchy) and drown in butter. Or cheese, or marmite, or honey, or whatever else you like covering your crumpet with. I’m rather fond of cheese myself, a good strong cheddar melting deep into the holes…
So, are they worth the effort over shop bought crumpets? Hell yes! They are so much lighter, fluffier and although the cooking bit does involve standing around in the kitchen for a while working through the batter three at a time (which is only a limit imposed by the size of my frying pan, to be fair) it’s not exactly tricky cooking – it’s mostly stood looking at the crumpets and reading a book. They also keep fairly well; interestingly enough after 4 or 5 days they start to taste much closer to shop bought crumpets which would seem to suggest that the crumpets I’ve always loved have always been stale.

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33 Comments to "Homemade Crumpets | Pete Bakes"

  1. Miss Whiplash

    Y'know what? I read this post and said “ooh I should make those myself” 😉
    Haven't made crumpets for years…
    No time today – but I shall definitely look into it. Just have to identify some victims first….

    Reply
  2. Gill the Painter

    they look absolutely fantastic, Kavey.

    I'm going to pop into the kitchen and make some myself.

    No rings though, so they won't be nearly as fine as yours.

    Reply
  3. Josordoni

    oh aren't they fab!! I even have crumpet rings (somewhere…..) and I love the look of that little book (even if I am not 100% sure about Aberdeen Butteries.)

    I like my crumpets toasted really crunchy (no flabby crumpets here pls..) and then just topped with salty butter. Nothing else will do just really salty butter..mmmm

    Reply
  4. thelittleloaf

    I love baking, I love crumpets, but somehow I've never got round to making them. There's a recipe I've been eyeing up in my River Cottage Bread Handbook but I've not been brave enough to give it a go. From the looks of this post, they're really not too tricky so I'm going to give it a go!

    My favourite crumpet topping is butter – the trick is to keep buttering them til it seeps out the other end, and then add another wedge for extra bite! 🙂

    Reply
  5. Lisa

    This has inspired me to go and buy some crumpet rings. And a frying pan that actuially does have a flat surface…oh no! Wait! I have a cast iron griddle! Huzzah. 🙂

    Reply
  6. tori

    Gorgeous. Favourite crumpet topping; mashed banana, sprinkle of cinnamon and a drizzling of maple syrup.

    Reply
  7. Kay

    Is it bad to admit I've never tried crumpets? Needs to be rectified as soon as possible! They look & sound great.

    Reply
  8. BunnyBanter

    All I need to find are some crumpets rings now…

    My fave topping is definitely lots of butter, marmite and raspberry jam (yes all together, don't knock it til you've tried it), though I did make a tasty lunch of crumpets w cheddar and chorizo grilled on top. Yum!

    Reply
  9. Ana-Luiza

    I love your recipe and I can't wait to try it. As for the crumpet topping, I love lemon curd as I ussualy prefer its sour taste.

    Keep up the good work!

    Reply
  10. Pete Favelle

    BunnyBanter – nothing wrong with that topping; I've always loved Marmite and jam sandwiches…

    Of course, now I'm going to have to make another batch just to try all these new toppings out 🙂

    Reply
  11. BeccaRothwell

    I love crumpets but I never think to make them myself, mostly through being too damn lazy. Perhaps I will buy some rings and give it a go.

    Favourite crumpet topping – I almost said marmite and melted mature cheddar cheese, as that is probably my favourite savoury topping. However. A few months ago I discovered the unbridled joy of peanut butter and nutela topped crumpets. So. Good.

    Email: Becca (at ) howtomakeamess (dot) com.

    Reply
  12. Rosana

    Yummy! I will have a go soon. My favourite toppings: savoury: melted cheese and mortadella (finely sliced). Sweet: spreadable dulce de leche or brigadeiro. Have a nice day. x

    Reply
  13. Mickle in NZ

    Super thanks for the crumpet/muffin/egg/anything else ring greasing advice. Everything else I've tried has been a complete failure even though my rings are supposedly “non stick”. I have hope at last with using them!!!

    Michelle downunder in Wellington, NZ

    Reply
  14. @applelisafood

    I made these a few days ago, and they were wonderful! I mixed the batter by hand rather than a mixer, which wasn’t much work, and the dough rose crazily! I put too much mix in he first pair (we only had 2 rings!) and as well as sticking badly, they didn’t cook through before burning on the bottom. Switched to silicon egg rings, which worked like a dream, and much less batter – the result was perfect crumpets!
    After leaving to cool (difficult) they were toasted, liberally buttered and eaten with slices of Montgomery Cheddar. Superb – I’ll definitely be making these again! Thank you…

    Reply
  15. vanessa

    Really love the humour…. it deserves recognition and so I’ll choose your recipe to attempt crumpets for the first time ha 🙂

    Reply
  16. Pip

    I’m just making crumpets and mine are much too thick (probably because I’m greedy and filled the rings up too much) your recipe is essentially the same as the one I’m using, I think the addition of the oil would probably help them release from the rings more easily. My second lot are looking much better as I’ve looked at your recipe and only put about 1cm of batter in. I’ll try your recipe next weekend, which is more user friendly (chuck everything in and mix well).

    Reply
  17. kaveyeats

    I did yes! She asked for crumpet recipes (on twitter) as she’d been struggling to make them, and I pointed her at Pete’s post – his always come out well. I’m biased, of course, but I think his (pictured here) look the best! 🙂 I love that column of Felicity’s actually!

    Reply
  18. Phi hopkins

    sounds good to me i’m a bit new at cooking sweets like this need some rings and give it a try
    many thanks Phil n Taff (my dog) she will have one i’m shore.

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    The crumpets aren’t sweet, but they are lovely served with jam if you would like to have them as a sweet treat. They are also great with butter and Marmite for a savoury option.

    Reply
  19. Sploshy

    Nice crumpets Pete 😉 I have those rings somewhere, but I’m sure they’re all different sizes lol. I’ll have the large crumpet! I’ll give these a go during the lockdown. Thanks.

    Reply
  20. Barbara Treves

    Yours is the third time I’ve tried making crumpets and while I was hoping the caveat about 3rd X’s the charm would come true here; alas not so. The first two recipes, I tried gave me the correct batter consistency for pouring into the rings however the center remained gooey no matter how long they remained over the heat. Your recipe which suggested two types of flour (the others did not) looked hopeful but the batter remained thick and did not “pour” into the molds. Could it be that rather than 1/2 pint of liquid, I should be adding 1 pint of 50/50 milk/water?

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Hi Barbara, I’m so sorry to hear this recipe hasn’t worked for you. We’ve had a fair few people make it successfully, and we’ve made it many times to the same recipe, so we are confident the amounts are correct – you are right that it’s half an imperial pint in total of liquid – that’s 286 ml in volume. That said, different flours can absorb very different amounts of liquid, depending on humidity, environment and variations in the flour so you could certainly try upping the liquid amounts to achieve a thick batter. Best of luck!

    Reply

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