Nothing beats a charred crumpet in the morning, especially if it’s pissing in butter and Marmite. It’s the kind of brekkie I imagine Henry VIII having before heading out of the castle for some hunting and womanising.
Back in uni my mate Mark Smith and I had a scale of crumpet brands – organising them into just how good they were in the morning. Surprisingly enough, number 2 in the list were ASDA’s Smart Price ones (they were about 14p for 6 in them days) – but always at the top were the Warburtons ones.
I’ve never actually tried making them myself at home though – and I’m going to presume that if I did – homemade would be at the very top of that scale. Well, in these times of lockdown, Warburtons have actually released their recipe for crumpets – so you can try them yourself. Here you go…
Warburtons Crumpets
Ingredients (makes six crumpets)
– 150g plain white flour
– 200ml water
– ½ tsp salt
– ½ tsp sugar
– 1 tsp baking powder
– 1 tsp dried yeast
Method
1. Add flour, water and salt to a mixing bowl. Mix vigorously with a whisk for at least five minutes to create your crumpet batter.
2. Mix a few millilitres of water into to your dried yeast.
3. Add sugar, baking powder and yeast mixture to the bowl and mix for another 30 seconds until you have a clear batter.
4. Cover mixing bowl and put in a warm place for 15 minutes.
5. Place a greased metal biscuit cutter (any shape cutter you have to hand will do the trick) into the middle of a non-stick frying pan. Pre-heat your frying pan on a hob on a medium-high heat setting.
6. Before you start, give your batter a stir to remove any large air bubbles. Use a ladle to drop approximately 60g of batter into the cutter inside the pan. Wait for approximately four minutes, then carefully lift the ring off the crumpet.
7. Remove the baked crumpet from the pan (if the top looks a bit gooey flip over in the pan for a few seconds). Then cool.
8. Repeat the above to make as many as you can eat.
Once made – coat in butter and eat them all in 30 seconds.
