Home › Recipes › English Crumpets
English Crumpets
1 1/2 pounds of flour. 1 quart of warm water. 1 cupful of yeast. 1 basting-spoonful of melted lard. 1 basting-spoonful of syrup 1 small teaspoouful of salt Mix all the ingredients together like setting sponge for bread-with very cold water if made over night for breakfast, or else 6 hours before the meal with warm. Beat thoroughly both at time of mixing and just before baking. Such cakes as these, baked rather dry and not too thin, are made and sold in shops which have no other business but these and muffins in all the cities. The "crumpets" are commonly toasted in their native lands. Wheat Batter Cakes. "Flannel" Cakes. 2 pounds, or quarts, of flour. 2 quarts of warm water. 1 cup of yeast. 1 basting-spoonful of syrup. 4 ounces of melted lard. 4 eggs Salt. Mix the flour into a sponge with the yeast and water, either over night or 6 hours before supper. An hour before the meal add the enriching ingredients and beat well.
A slack yeast batter cooked on a griddle rather than a true dough — the ratio of 1 1/2 lb flour to a quart of water gives something close to thick cream, which is what produces the holes. Two recipes are run together here; the second, the "flannel" cakes, is the same idea enriched with eggs and more fat.
- The cupful of yeastThis means liquid barm or a home-kept yeast starter, not dried granules. About 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons of instant dried yeast will raise this quantity of flour; if you use a sourdough or poolish starter instead, reduce the water slightly to allow for what the starter contributes.
- Basting-spoonfulA basting spoon is considerably larger than a table-spoon; read it as roughly 2 tablespoons, though period usage varied. The syrup is most likely molasses, and at this small proportion it will do more to feed the yeast and colour the surface than to sweeten.
- Cold water overnight, warm water for a short riseThis is the whole logic of the timing note. A cold overnight sponge ferments slowly and is ready by breakfast; a warm one is pushed through in six hours. Choose one, do not warm an overnight batter.
- The second beating matters mostBeating just before baking knocks the batter back to an even consistency and redistributes the gas.
- Rings and griddle heatThe recipe says nothing about rings or heat, but modern practice is greased rings about 3 1/2 inches across on a griddle at moderate heat. Too hot and the top sets before the holes break through; too cool and they never colour.
- "Baked rather dry and not too thin"Pour to about 3/4 inch in the ring and cook until the top surface is set and matte all over before removing the ring. The pale, dry top is correct; the browning happens later, at the toaster.
- LardLard was cheap and widely used for shortening in this period. Butter or a neutral oil can stand in, though butter carries water and will give a slightly slacker batter weight for weight.
- YieldThe crumpet batter makes somewhere between about 14 and 20 rings depending on how deep you pour. The flannel-cake batter, with two quarts of water to 2 lb of flour, is roughly double the quantity and worth halving unless you are feeding a boarding house.
Crumpets belong to the British griddle-bread family — pikelets, muffins, bara-planc — cooked on a bakestone rather than in an oven, and the author's aside that they are "commonly toasted in their native lands" tells you the writer expected American readers to be unfamiliar with them. The note about shops selling nothing but crumpets and muffins is the more interesting detail: they could be bought ready-made from specialist muffin men and crumpet shops in the larger cities, even as recipes like this one show them being made at home. The "flannel cakes" that follow are the American cousin, the name often said to come from a soft, napped texture.