I made crumpets today! I am feeling pretty proud of myself. They came out great! The batter was truly bizarre: gloopy, glutinous mass that wasn't sure whether it wanted to be a liquid or a solid and definitely didn't want to be subdivided. Edmonds talks about pouring the batter, but it doesn't so much pour as... glorp. You can sort of scoop the batter up in a measuring cup, but it's kind of like trying to serve spaghetti with a ladle. You can get the ladle under the noodles and start to lift them up, but most of them will sort of slide/fall out because the bulk of the noodle is still in the bowl below. Now imagine that but with noodles that are much longer, thinner, heavier and all connected to each other like a sort of mesh. I eventually got the hang of working with it, but it's definitely not like anything I've ever made before. Can't argue with the results though!

Crumpets

From Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

• 250mL milk
• 300mL hot water
• 2 tsp. sugar
• 2 tsp. active dry yeast¹
• 450g soft (cake or "plain") flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 100mL warm water

Directions

1. Combine the milk and hot water.
2. Stir in sugar until completely dissolved.
3. Sprinkle yeast over tepid mixture and set aside for 10 minutes. (Mixture should become frothy and produce bubbles.)
4. Meanwhile, sift² flour and salt together in a large bowl.
5. Once the yeast has had 10 minutes to soak and reconstitute, pour the yeast mixture over the flour mixture and stir to combine and form a smooth(ish) batter.
6. Beat hard for 5 minutes³. The batter will start to become strange and gloopy as the gluten develops. It'll still have enough water in it that it'll settle out into a placid-looking liquid when left alone. But, when beating, the gluten will mean that it will hold together, forming a ball almost like when making a more typical yeasted dough. It may climb the beaters. And when you finish beating it, there will likely be thick, glutinous sheets of batter stretched across the beaters. This is a good sign. Although it can be a bit of a task to coax it off the beaters and back into the bowl.
7. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and leave in a warm place⁴ until batter has doubled in volume (~1 hour).
8. Dissolve baking soda in warm water and beat into risen batter.
9. Cover and rest for 10 minutes.
10. Heat a large cast iron pan (or other heavy-bottomed pan/griddle) over medium heat and lightly butter it.
11. Butter the inside of the egg rings (or whatever you're using to shape your crumpets) and set them in the pan.
12. Pour a few tablespoons of batter into a ring and let it cook. If it runs out under the edge of the ring, the batter is too thin and needs more flour. If no (or insufficient) holes form and the batter doesn't bubble enough (or the bubbles don't burst during cooking), the batter is too thick and needs more water. My batter was too thick on the first attempt and needed more water. I think I added nearly an extra 100mL to get the right consistency.
13. Once you've found a good consistency for the batter that produces good results with lots of holes, you can start filling up all the rings. 3-4 tablespoons each should be about right for most egg rings. The batter should come about halfway up the sides of the ring and will rise the rest of the way during cooking.
14. Cook crumpets until risen and bubbles form (and burst) on top. The top should look almost dry before you flip it.
15. Flip them over (still in their rings) and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
16. Remove to cooling rack, regrease rings, and repeat with remaining batter.
17. Serve warm with lots of butter! (And optionally jam, honey, and/or maple syrup.)

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¹ You could probably also use instant yeast, simply adding it directly to the flour (rather than soaking first). Seeing as I had active dry yeast on hand though, I opted to use that and follow the recipe as written. ^Back
2 I totally forgot to sift the flour. Probably would've been easier to get a smooth batter if I had. Doesn't seem to have had any adverse effects overall though. ^Back
3 I highly recommend using some sort of electric mixer for this. You can do it by hand with a wooden spoon, but your arm might fall off by the end of five minutes of hard beating. I just used a little handheld electric mixer on low and that seemed to do the trick nicely. ^Back
4 I usually just leave my dough to rise at room temperature. In this case though, I did make a "warm place" by filling a bowl with hot tap water, placing a wire rack over the bowl of water, and then setting to bowl of batter on top of the rack. You can then cover the whole assembly with a damp cloth, creating a warm humid environment for your yeasted dough/batter. ^Back