Crumpets: spongy discs with holes that make themselves
Crumpets are neither pancakes nor rolls but something between: spongy discs with open holes on top that butter sinks into after toasting. Those holes are no accident: the gas from the yeast gets help from bicarbonate of soda stirred into a risen, already slightly acidic batter. The batter foams visibly, and during cooking the bubbles punch through the surface and stay there.
Your own work in that: 50 min.
- Batter 65 min
- Bicarbonate 10 min
- Cooking 40 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneWhisk a loose batter
Combine the flour, yeast, sugar and salt, pour in the lukewarm milk and water and whisk 2 minutes until lump free. The batter should be as loose as thick cream — falling from the whisk in a continuous stream, not in sheets.
Ingredients: 300 g plain or strong white flour · 250 ml milk · 200 ml water · 7 g dried yeast · 1 tsp sugar · 1 tsp salt
Leave it an hour
Cover and leave somewhere warm 60 minutes. It should double, cover itself in bubbles and then sink slightly. This stage is not only about rising: the yeast acidifies the batter, and the bicarbonate needs that acid to work fully.
Doubled, bubbled, slightly fallenAdd the bicarbonate and watch
Dissolve the bicarbonate in three tablespoons of warm water and whisk it into the batter. It foams visibly and grows. Leave 10 minutes. This is the bicarbonate reacting with the acid the yeast produced; together with the yeast gas it makes the holes.
Ingredients: ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda · 3 tbsp warm water
TipFrom this moment you have about <b>45 minutes</b>. After that the reaction is spent, the batter falls, and each successive crumpet has fewer holes.
It foams before your eyes: the reaction startsGrease the rings and the pan
Butter metal rings 8–9 cm across (or egg rings) thoroughly, including the inside walls. Set them on a greased pan and heat everything together over low heat — the ring must be warm before the batter goes in.
Ingredients: 40 g butter
Butter the inside wall of the ring tooFill halfway and wait for holes
Pour the batter halfway up the ring — it nearly doubles. Cook over low heat 8–10 minutes, until the surface is covered in open holes and the top has gone matt and dry. Cook in batches, as many as you have rings; grease the rings again before each batch.
TipLow heat is a condition here, not caution. On high heat the base burns before the bubbles can rise through the full depth, leaving a smooth top.
Open holes across the whole surfaceLift the rings and turn briefly
Carefully lift off the rings (run a knife round the inside if they stick) and cook the crumpets one more minute on the top side, just to colour them lightly. Cool on a rack. Before eating, toast them and add butter.
A minute on top, then toaster and butter
Before you start
Crumpets are eaten toasted
Freshly cooked they are soft and damp. Only the toaster makes them what they are meant to be: crisp outside, spongy within, with holes for melted butter to sink into.
Without rings
You can pour the batter straight onto the pan — you get thinner, irregular discs with holes. They taste the same but lose the characteristic shape and depth.
Too few holes
Three causes: the batter was too thick, the heat too high, or too long passed after adding the bicarbonate. A spoon of water fixes the first, the dial the second; the third cannot be fixed.
Storing
Three days in a sealed container, or a month in the freezer. Put them straight into the toaster from frozen, without thawing — just like shop-bought crumpets.
