Here is the Elizabeth David version of crumpets. If you don't have her
book, English Bread and Yeast Cookery, you should try to get it.
3 cups or so unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp. dry yeast (1/2 oz. fresh)
a generous 2 1/2 cups milk and water, mixed
1 tbsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
2 tbsp. oil
Second Mixing
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2/3 cup warm water, or a little more
Warm the flour in an earthenware bowl in a low oven for 5 minutes. Warm
the oil, milk, water and sugar to blood heat. Use a little of this to
cream the yeast. (I proofed active dry yeast in 1/2 cup warm water.) Mix
the salt with the warm flour, stir in the yeast, pour in the liquid, and
stir the batter very well and vigorously, until it is smooth and
elastic. Cover the bowl, leave batter to rise at room temp. until the
whole surface is a mass of bubbles and the mixture looks as if it were
about to break. This will take 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Forestall the natural
falling of the batter by beating it down yourself with a wooden spoon.
Dissolve the baking soda in the warm water and stir it into the bowl. Cover
the bowl and leave the batter to recover, for about 30 minutes. This time,
put it in a rather warmer place, unless you need to delay the cooking of
the crumpets, in which case use cold water for dissolving the soda and
remove the bowl of batter to a cool place.
To cook the crumpets, grease the griddle very lightly, also the crumpet
rings. Put 4 rings on the griddle, pour enough batter into each to come
almost to the top. Let them cook very gently, 7 to 10 minutes. By this
time there should be a mass of tiny holes. If the holes haven't appeared,
the batter is too thick. Add more warm water or milk to the batter before
cooking the next batch.
Once the crumpets have set, it should be easy to slip off the rings and
turn them over. They only need 3 minutes on the other side.
Note: I used a non-stick, electric frying pan at no hotter than 275 deg.
F. I also wound up adding almost 1/3 cup more warm water to the
batter. They don't rise very much, but they are the best crumpets I have
ever eaten.
Paddy Lanthier.