Homemade Crumpets

Because Antoinette gave me a Herman sourdough starter recently I've been casting around for things to use the ever growing monster on. The Herman website features cake, cake, cake and cake. I wanted to make bread, so I have started modifying the starter to be a bit less sweet. Once it is a mature starter with plenty of yeasty beasties you can reduce the amount of sugar and just rely on adding flour periodically to feed them (and liquid in the form of milk or water to keep it at batter consistency). It may smell nasty, but it works a treat. You can also keep it in the fridge to send it to sleep for a few days if you are away, or fed up with weekly baking to keep it in manageable quantities (or have run out of friends to pass it on to). The more mature your sourdough the better the flavour it gives to your baked goods and the better it modifies the gluten without any effort on your part (ie it's great for no-knead breads).

Crumpet forming the characteristic bubbles

 Crumpets are one of those things, like golden syrup and powdered mustard, that you cannot buy in France. Fortunately they are not an essential anglophone staple, but they are nice to have from time to time. So I consulted my bread baking bible, Bread Matters by Andrew Whitley, and checked out how you make crumpets.

One cooking and one ready to eat.

 He says crumpets are a ciabatta dough with extra water added to turn the mixture into a batter. The preparations must be done over several days, but I have discovered that the batter keeps well in the fridge, so you can make a couple of crumpets fresh for breakfast several days in a row. This is better than cooking the whole batch at once if you are not going to eat them immediately. Homemade crumpets do not keep well. You can toast day old crumpets to refresh them, but it is very definitely a compromise.

Ingredients:
A sachet of yeast
350 ml water
350 g flour
200 g sourdough starter
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt

Method:

1. Dissolve the yeast in 150 ml water.
2. Add 150 g flour and mix well.
3. Leave to rise for a day or two (it will bubble madly and expand hugely, then collapse - this is fine and what it is supposed to do).
4. Combine the sponge dough you have created with the sourdough starter and all the rest of the ingredients in a mixer using the cake beater. The water can be cold (if the batter is destined for the fridge to rise) or warm (about 34C if for consumption later the same day).
5. Mix on the slowest speed for 15 minutes.
6. If the mixture is clearly not pourable add some more water. It should be thicker than pancake batter, and only just pourable.
7. Leave it to develop bubbles for a couple of hours (or overnight in the fridge).
8. Heat a griddle on a medium flame and brush it and a 10 cm metal ring with oil.
9. Place the ring on the griddle and pour in about 1/2 a cup of batter.
10. Reduce the heat to low. Cook until the top has dried right across and has no liquid batter centre - this will take a good 20 minutes. It should have formed the characteristic bubbles which leave holes in the top.
11. Remove the ring and flip the crumpet for 3 minutes on its top. Try to hold your nerve, but if you think it is burning on the bottom, if necessary, turn the crumpet early.
12. Smear with butter and honey and enjoy for breakfast.

Yum

Susan