The whole point of the Random Recipe Challenge set each month by dashing Dom of +belleau kitchenis to get us out of our comfort zone and make us try something new. This month the theme is bread so I opened the EatYourBooks website and searched my own cookbooks as specified. My random number landed on English Bread and Yeast Cookery, a book I have had for a while and have enjoyed reading, but had yet to cook or bake from. It is by Elizabeth David, the grande dame of British cookbook authors.
What there is to know about food preparation that she hasn’t written about, must not be worth knowing. Each recipe is thoroughly researched and documented and delivered with current (at the time of publication) personal observations. Mrs. David shares nine recipes for crumpets, those little griddle yeast breads, the oldest dating back to 1769, and her treatise on what a crumpet should and should not be. She is quite firm and I get the feeling that she was quite a character. My random recipe number this month brought me to the one called Crumpets 1973. Thank God.
Ingredients
3 2/3 cups or 455g flour
1 packet dried yeast (3/4o oz or 21g) I used Fleischmann’s Rapid Rise.
2 cups or 470ml milk, diluted with 1/4 cup or 60ml water
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons oil (I used canola.) plus extra for greasing the griddle and metal rings
For the second mixing: 1/2 teaspoon baking soda and 1/2 cup or 120ml warm water
Method
Mrs. David says to warm the flour in a crockery bowl in a warm oven so I popped mine in a glass bowl into the microwave. I didn’t really expect anything that dry to get warm, but it did. Since it’s hotter than the hinges of hell already here in Dubai, that step probably wasn’t necessary but I was curious to see if it would work.
Measure your milk, water, oil and sugar into a microwaveable vessel and then warm slowly to blood heat. I took that to mean 98.6°F or 37°C.
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| Close enough. |
Pour about 1/4 cup of 60ml of your warm milk mixture into a small bowl with the yeast and whisk gently.
Meanwhile, add the salt to your warmed flour and mix well.
Stir in the yeast and then add the warm milk mixture. Stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until it is smooth and elastic. Here Mrs. David quotes from an earlier crumpet recipe and says to “attack it with ‘vivacious turbulence.’” I suggest you do the same.
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| Look how foamy the yeast mixture got in just a couple of minutes! |
Cover the bowl and allow to rise for about an hour to an hour and a half at room temperature.
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| After an hour. |
Beat it down with a wooden spoon.
Dissolve the baking soda in the warm water and add it to the batter, again stirring vigorously. Let this rest, or as Mrs. David says, let the batter recover, for another 30 minutes.
Here where it gets tricky. Prepare your griddle and rings by brushing them liberally with oil. According to the instructions, my rings were supposed to be about 4 inches or 10cm across. Mine were considerably smaller.
Also, as I filled them the first time rather full, I realized that the characteristic holes in the crumpet couldn’t form because the batter was too deep. Also, perhaps my batter was too thick.
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| Too full? Or too thick? Either way, no holes! |
Mrs. David warned that this might happen and suggested adding some extra warm water to thin the batter just a little bit. I added another 1/4 cup or 60ml of water and only filled the rings halfway on the second attempt. I was delighted to start seeing holes forming as they cooked.
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| Yay! Holes starting to emerge! |
So: I suggest that you heat your griddle over a low to medium flame and then only fill the rings halfway with batter to start. If the holes are still not forming, add some more warm water to the batter.
Cook the batter until the holes have formed and the top is looking mostly cooked. Use an oven mitt to pick up the ring and run a knife around the crumpet to loosen it, if necessary, and remove the ring. Flip the crumpet so the holey side can brown.
Remove from griddle and, if you’d like, keep the finished ones warm in the oven until they are all done and you are ready to eat.
Continue brushing the rings with grease and filling them and cooking the crumpets until all your batter is gone. Or until you get sick and tired of turning out crumpets and decide to stack a couple of the first hole-less batch with cheese and saucisson and make your helper a birthday cake. Decorate with piped cream cheese. Sing the birthday song and blow the candle out for him. After all he has no lips.
This recipe makes a bunch of crumpets, at least a couple or three dozen, especially with small rings.
Smear them with a pat of butter and a drizzle of honey to fill the little holes.
Enjoy!
More birthday boy photos:
