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Recipe – Crumpets

Oops, just realised I wanted to share the crumpet recipe and hadn’t. I’m only posting recipes here that are generally available on the internet – I’m not on commission – but I think that Dani’s book is so lovely everyone should buy a copy!

Time required: 50 minutes, plus 1 hour proving.

Makes: about 16

375 grams baker’s flour

1/2 teaspoon caster sugar

5 grams dried yeast

300 grams milk

200 grams warm water

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Method:

Place 1 tablespoon of the flour, the caster sugar, yeast and 100 grams of the milk into the TM bowl. Set to mix for 5 minutes/37 degrees/speed 2. The mixture should start to become frothy.

Add the remaining flour and milk, plus the warm water, egg and salt. Mix for 10 seconds/speed 7 to form a thick batter. If your batter looks more like bread mix, add a little more warm water, and mix again for 5 seconds/speed 7, until the consistency reaches that of a thick batter. Then mix for a further 8 minutes/37 degrees/Speed 1.

Leave the mixture in the TM bowl to prove for about 1 hour, or until it bubbles.

Once the mixture has proved, add the bicarbonate of soda and gradually increase the speed to beat for 2 minutes/speed 5.

To cook the crumpets, oil 4 egg rings and a fry pan. Place the rings in the pan and heat for a minute on medium to high, the turn down the heat a little.

Pour about 1.5 cm of batter into each ring and cook for 5 minutes, or until the surface has dried and is full of holes. You may need to play with the pan temperature to find the right balance between a golden base and plenty of bubbles. If the pan is too hot, the bast starts to smell burnt before any bubbles have formed, and if it’s too cold, the surface slowly wrinkles rather than breaking into bubbles. (You can also puncture a few holes with a skewer or chopstick for visual effect if you like).

When ready, lift off the rings and turn the crumpets to cook on the other side for a minute, or until golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Clean the rings, oil the rings and fry pan again, and repeat the process until all the batter has been used.

Serve the crumpets warm, with butter and your favourite topping.

In the unlikely event of leftovers, the crumpets can be layered with baking paper, frozen and toasted straight from the freezer.

Crumpets

27 May

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What says weekend breakfast to me? Well, if I’m at home and I don’t want to mess up the kitchen with a fry up, it’s usually crumpets. My son loves them too, but until this morning he’d only ever had the ones from the supermarket. As my original plan to bring you the Caramelised White Chocolate Mousse this weekend were thwarted (read more about that later), and I wanted to do something from “In The Mix” this weekend, crumpets it was. I made the batter last night after dinner, and then after it had proved and I had put in the bicarb soda, I popped it in the fridge overnight, and made fresh crumpets this morning. They were beautiful – infinitely nicer than the ones from the supermarket. It made about 15, and I’ve frozen the left overs with greaseproof paper between them so I can just use one or two when I need them.

This recipe comes from Jeff Brady, whose Thermomix blog is well worth a look and a follow – you can find his blog at thermomix-er.blogspot.com.

If you’re wanting to serve these for breakfast, make sure you make the batter the night before – unless you want to wait for an hour for the mixture to prove! And when you store the batter in the fridge overnight, put it in a jug rather than a bowl – and it will be easier and less messy to make the crumpets pouring out the batter than spooning it into the rings.

The batter is really easy to make. SInce I’ve had the thermomix, I’ve always had yeast sachets in the cupboard for bread dough (especially the hot cross buns – oh so good) and this recipe calls for 5 grams of yeast. If you buy the Tandaco Yeast like I do, each sachet is 7 grams, so I poured in the majority of it, and wasn’t pedantic about shaking out every little bit like I often am with other baking.

I used egg rings when I made the crumpets. I couldn’t believe I still had any, but I dug them out – I can’t actually remember the last time I used them. If you don’t have egg rings perhaps you could use scone cutters or something similar, but as the batter is fairly thick and runny, if you don’t use something, you’ll end up with a crumpet pancake. The egg rings worked beautifully – don’t forget to oil them – I did both sides as the mixture will probably bubble over a little and if the outer edge is oiled, you can peel away the bubbled over bits a lot more easily. Dani suggests oiling them, then putting them in the pan to heat up, then pour the batter in. It seems to do something, and the crumpets just popped out without a trouble in the world. Lord knows why I never thought of oiling the rings back in the day when I used to fry eggs…

It took me a couple of batches to get the temperature just right for cooking the crumpets, but you’ll know it once you have reached it – 5 minutes on one side, and about a minute on the other side. If the batter is too runny to turn the rings, you’ll know they are not ready to turn – – – once I’d perfected the temperature, the egg rings literally fell off as I turned them over.

These would be beautiful served with a home made jam – maybe even the jam from the Steamed Pudding Recipe. Because of my over enthusiasm with whipping cream in the thermomix for the Caramelised White Chocolate Mousse yesterday, I was able to serve these with home made butter as well…such a treat!! I had mine with the honey from Cafe Vue at Heide Gallery, which was a take home treat after an amazing dinner at Vue de Monde earlier this week. Superb! For those of you who have been there recently, you won’t be surprised when a cucumber sorbet pops up on this blog in a few weeks – the one I had there was one of the best things I’ve ever tasted.

So, next weekend I’ll definitely make the Caramelised White Chocolate Mousse – stay tuned!