Crumpets

One thing the UK's food does that nobody else does is toasting. From plain bread to teacakes & the like we have a lovely range of toaster snacks. Crumpets must come up near the top, normaly I buy them but I saw a recipe on the TV and decided to give it a go. Crumpets are a leavened batter which is given a further bit of lift, poppiness by the addition of baking soda. You need a chef's ring or crumpet rings to put on your griddle or frying pan you get something like this :-



As you heat them they rise, and more importantly the bubbles burst up through the surface and you get the lovely butter holding matrix that makes crumpets great. Unfortunately I think mine may have suffered from the cold snap we are having which may have rendered the yeast a bit sluggish. They came out a bit less holey than expected.




The other side effect of the cold snap is I've needed to have a good fire blazing. I'm lucky enough to own 2 toasting forks and the farmshop had some quality butter. It was pretty sucessful but I think next time I'll find somewhere warmer for the dough to rise.

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