Fresh Crumpets

A little birdy told me something the other day, it told me ever so sweetly that people are actually cooking from this blog!

I'm so happy, thrilled and excited about this. More than anything, I want you; gorgeous, wonderful readers, to take inspiration away from what I write here. It makes me so happy to know that some of you are cooking, baking, adapting and changing the recipes. I didn't want to create a blog that was like everything else out there. I want to create things that you wouldn't normally think to make, like these crumpets for instance. I've heard people exclaim that they didn't even know you could make crumpets from scratch, well i'm here to tell you that yes you certainly can, even if it does take you all day!

This post is dedicated to all the people who read this thing. Thanks for being so supportive and thank you for motivating me to keep creating new things that you want to eat and read about. If you ever have a suggestion of something you would like to see me attempt, then please let me know. I love feedback.

Back to the crumpets.


I'm not going to fib and tell you that these were so easy and you could whip them up in a spare half an hour. Because that would be a big fat pork-pie-lie! They did take me a while, half a day in fact. Which I certainly wasn't planning on. I could have easily popped down to the supermarket and grabbed myself a bag, but it I could easily do that with anything couldn't I! Plus I wanted to challenge the yeast packet to a duel.

You all know about my fear of yeast. I had been putting it off for so long that it was finally time to give it a crack. It wasn't that bad after all, although it was rather unpredictable. And it did try to climb up my electric mixer. Just as I thought it would, (it didn't try to suffocate me in my sleep though, that was a plus). It wasn't helpful that I only had one appropriately sized egg ring too therefore I had to fry them one by one, which doubled the time.

At the end of all the tomfoolery emerged golden, soft, beautiful crumpets that i'm seriously proud of. They taste a million times better than store-bought ones and are well worth the extra effort. Toast them as you would normal crumpets and smear with butter and honey. Perfection.

Fresh Crumpets:
Adapted From Bill Granger's 'Sydney' Cookbook

1.5 cups milk
1.5 teaspoons sugar
7g sachet dried yeast
375g plain flour
a pinch of salt
0.5 teaspoon bicarb soda (baking soda)

Pour the milk into a saucepan and heat until just warm. Remove from heat, transfer to a bowl and stir in the sugar and yeast. (Do not have the milk too hot or it will kill the yeast.) Allow to stand for 10 minutes or until the milk starts to bubble.

Sift the flour and salt into a bowl and make a well in the centre. Gradually add the milk to the flour and beat with electric beaters until completely smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and stand in a warm place for 1-1.5 hours, or until doubled in volume and full of air bubbles.

Mix the bicarb soda with 200ml luke warm water, and use electric beaters to combine with batter. Let stand for half an hour until bubbles form on the surface.

Heat a heavy based frying pan over medium heat and brush with melted butter. LIghtly grease four 4 metal rings, 8cm in diameter and 3cm deep, and put into the pan. Spoon approximately 3 tablespoons of the batter into each ring. Cook over very low heat for 5 minutes or until the surface is full of large bubbles and a skin has formed. Loosen the rings (I slid a knife around the inside edge of mine) and turn over to cook the other side until lightly golden. Remove the crumpets from the pan and stand on a wire rack covered with a tea towel while cooking the remaining batter. Serve the crumpets fresh or toasted, dripping with butter and honey.