Home-made Crumpets

It was Sunday morning (a few hrs ago) and my little daughter, whose favorite activity is to cook with Mummy asked, "Mummy, what are we making to eat?". The key word here is "we". So I took the hint and thought toast somehow will not cut it today and decided to make crumpets and she will be able to help with the mixing the dough part of it. After I told her about it, my daughter beamed at me saying, "yay! crumpets!", letting me know that she was doubly pleased :)

Crumpets are very popular here, in the UK, and are eaten for afternoon tea or even sometimes for breakfast. They are not spicy or strange, and make for great finger food, making it easy for children to eat. Whenever our family visits us from Trinidad or India they like to eat these everyday. They love it so much that they complain that they unable to get them in their hometowns! Funny thing is that I did not realize how easy it is to make them at home until recently and home-made ones tastes way better than the store bought crumpets. Now, why is that not a big surprise? So let's get to the recipe...

You will need (for making 8-10 medium crumpets):
225 g/8 oz plain/all purpose flour
150 ml warm water + 2 tbsp warm
150 ml warm milk
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp active dried yeast
1 tsp butter
1/2 tsp baking soda
cooking oil to grease the skillet and crumpet rings/cookie cutters (if using)

Warm up milk on the stove top or microwave (just lukewarm) and add the butter to it. It will just start to melt.

 Sift flour and salt into a mixing bowl...My LO is doing it here...







Add in the sugar and yeast and mix them well.

 Make a well in the centre and add the warm milk-butter.







Mix well...

 Add warm water. I used the same milk bowl to warm up water. Again make sure that the water is not hot but just lukewarm.

Mix well to form a thick runny batter.

Cover with cling film/towel and rest in a warm place for 1 hr for the dough to raise.

After an hr, you will see lots of bubbles on the surface and the dough has doubled in size.

Mix 1/2 tsp of baking soda to 2 tbsps of water

 and add it to the dough and mix thoroughly.







Grease the skillet and crumpet rings or you can cookie cutter of desired shape with cooking oil. Make sure you grease them well. I am using non-stick ones here so I go easy on the oil. But you may have to use butter or use more oil when using normal rings/cookie cutters. Heat the rings and the skillet to medium heat. Reduce the heat to low.

Add about 4-5 tbsps of batter into the rings. It should be about 1-2 inches high. Do not fill it all the way to the top. The dough will raise when cooking.





Little bubbles will start appearing and start traveling to the top and burst. This is what gives crumpets those lovely holes. The more of these better for us to soak up the butter :) Leave them to cook thoroughly all the way through until all the bubbles are gone and top is semi dry.




Now, in my case (because of the non-stick), I was able to lift off the rings easily with the handle. But you may have to slide the crumpets out of the rings with a knife or chopsticks (for non-stick).

 Turn the crumpets over gently and let them cook on the other side for another minute or 2.

You can see the lines formed by the bubbles that traveled all the way up to the surface. You can make these without these rings or cookie cutters. Just drop the batter on greased medium hot skillet and let them cook on both sides. They will not be thick and fluffy like the crumpets. But they will be soft and yummy and are called pikelets or Scotch pancakes or drop scone here :)


Crumpets are usually enjoyed with butter and jam. But being a South Indian sweet breakfasts or snacks do not appeal to me. So I eat them with sambar, chutney, idli milagaipodi or simple sambar powder-salt-oil mixture, well, with anything spicy really! Have a great day!


“Sending to What is with my cuppa and Nupur's page"

This is for my brother, Fadil, and my appa (Dad), santhanam ramu.