A Startling Crumpet Triumph

This is the diary of an obsessed Crumpet fan and a startling Crumpet triumph. Followed by a fall (or two), and then a deeper understanding.

To be honest, most recipes I’ve found make it sound like the simplest thing, but in my experience they are quite flaky.

My first attempts were many years ago. I was using sour dour so the process was long and the results quite crappy. The long fermentation process hindered the ability to obsess unhealthily over getting the crumpets right and so I gave up on the idea pretty quickly.

Being a UK ex-pat there are some foods I really missed in the first few years. I eventually got over it, and pretty much don’t think about stuff I don’t have. But any time I’m tempted to make an order on British Corner Shop I would always look for some crumpets. The downside is they are often out of date when they arrive. I still eat them so thats a non-information, but I can’t afford to make regular orders there and it wouldn’t make sense just for crumpets!

I dug out my old crumpet rings, which were given to me by a friend who didn’t need them anymore. That was back when I was trying with sourdough.

I could only find 2, but that was ok. Nothing would stop me on the Jamie Oliver recipe I found online.

I trusted Jamie and that if I followed it closely nothing could go wrong….

Crumpet disaster strikes

They were dense, practically no bubbles. Just a lot of mess and nothing to show for it.

Troubleshooting online someone mentioned that you should make sure your bicarb is not old…hmmm.

I checked the date and it had expired. By only 2 years. I would buy a new box of bicarbonate of soda.

Another thing I was mulling over was the flour type, most recipes stated Strong Flour and I had used a normal less finely ground flour, which is not the same thing.

Which flour for Crumpets?

Ok, my big secret coming up…. Some recipes call for a mix, some all strong and some just state flour. I wondered if the flour could be holding me back.

How could I find this “strong flour” I see in all the crumpet recipes? Strong flour is made from “hard wheat kernels”, according to wikipedia. In Italy I could mostly only find Type 0 and Type 00, di grano tenero. I was pretty sure tenero meant the opposite of strong. On my weekly stop by the local Lidl, the only other thing there was Farina di Semola, which had always sounded like semolina and I guessed (without ever checking) that it was a whole other thing nothing to do with normal bread flour.

This time I stood there for a good 10 minutes on my phone trawling italian websites for explanations and translation of strong flour. Manitoba flour is the classic strong flour, being high in protein and gluten. It was a flour I used a lot in bread making in the past but I’ve fallen out of the habit lately.

I discovered that semolina flour is actually not a bad substitute for bread flour in that it is also high in protein and gluten (13%). It is made from durum wheat which is the hardest type. I’ve done a lot of bread making in the past but up to this point I was completely ignorant about semolina flour. I just don’t know why its not mentioned when I search for strong flour.

It’s obviously a staple product in Lidl italy as it’s used for pasta making. Not sure about making Crumpets, but I was too eager to not try it.

I bought the flour and forgot the bicarbonate of soda.

Guess what? It was and is a hit every time.

I’ve got some Manitoba flour and I’m going to try this also…

—-> watch this space!

Unexpected Triumph

Dream Come True

Was it the change of flour? Or the fact I skipped the dated bicarb and used some baking powder in its place?

Is there anything more exciting than watching the air bubbles burst in home-made Crumpets? Maybe for some people this would be like watching paint dry, but for me it doesn’t get old…

And this moment was like a dream come true.

To be honest I couldn’t believe my eyes, I was starting to accept it was virtually impossible. Many websites insist that home-made crumpets don’t have many holes. This was a relief to see. I got excited and used a gingerbread cookie cutter to make a crumpet (aka Crumpetman). It went well until I tried to get it out; I practically polverized it trying to unstick it to the edges altough in hindsight I should have tried butter, see below).

They can and will be improved on, but at this point I was a happy bunny. I was not impossible, and I was getting there!

What to improve on

• Lighter colour on the bottom (I followed Jamies instructions on med-high)
• More even browning on top – avoid the dark hard outer ring. More on this below…

Crumpet (and mood) Spoiler

OIL!! Damn that oil… This is not good and it’s the same with both my older non-stick rings as well as my new shiny Lakeland Crumpet rings. To be sure it wasn’t another factor causing the crumpets to be fused to the sides, I greased half with butter and half with oil. I’ve tried both olive oil and nut oil, and both were a terrible mess.

So if you’re wondering what to grease Crumpet rings with…

Butter, butter, butter….. only butter!