The Afternoon Tea – Ettore Simonetti (1857-1909)

These days of course we can buy them by the shed load in our local supermarkets at a very affordable price but I’d often wondered where the idea originated and how the spongy, holey texture was produced.

Having looked into it, it seems crumpets may date back to the Anglo-Saxons but weren’t quite as appealing in those days!  They would have been quite hard pancakes cooked on the Anglo Saxon version of a griddle and it wasn’t until around the Victorian era that the softer texture (which was obviously more palatable for ladies of a delicate constitution) came into being.

That said, until today I still wondered exactly how these crumpets were made and, indeed, how time consuming and difficult they would be to make, so it was with absolute delight that I came across a recipe for making them at home and, believe it or not, they seem incredibly easy to make!

The recipe is enough to make six crumpets.

Ingredients

250 ml (9 fl oz) Semi-skimmed or whole milk

200 g (8 oz) Plain flour

1 tsp Fast-action dried yeast

1 tsp Caster or granulated sugar

½ tsp Table salt

Method

Mix together all the ingredients for the crumpets in a bowl, cover and leave in a warm place to double in size ( around 20 minutes).

When the crumpet dough has doubled in size, put a large frying pan over a moderate heat, add 1tbsp of vegetable oil to the pan and once the oil has heated up, place three greased egg rings in the pan.

Spoon half the crumpet mixture into the rings until two thirds full. Allow the undersides to cook slowly until the mixture has set and the bubbles on top have burst.

Repeat a second time.

 I’m most certainly going to give these a go!  I’ll probably make up a large batch when I’m at a loose end over a weekend and then bag some up and freeze them.  I can taste them already – lashings of butter with maybe some honey or jam or even a slice or two of good old Cheddar cheese!!