Homemade Crumpets

Homemade Crumpets (adapted from King Arthur Flour)

Printable Recipe

1 1/2 cups lukewarm water

1 cup lukewarm milk

2 Tb melted butter

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 1/2 tsp instant yeast

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp sugar

1 1/4 tsp salt

Combine all of the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer, and beat on high for 2 minutes. It should look like pancake batter, maybe a little bit thicker, but NOT like loose dough. If it is watery, add another 1/4-1/2 cup of flour and mix again.

Cover the bowl, and let the batter rest at room temperature for about 1 hour. When your hour of resting is nearly up, preheat a griddle to medium-low, about 325-350 degrees. (A frying pan will work too, not quite as hot as you would cook pancakes.)

Lightly grease the griddle/frying pan, and place well-greased English muffin rings (3-4 inch) in the pan, as many as will fit. (English muffin rings are pretty cheap, but you can also make your own by removing the top and bottom of clean tuna cans.)

At this point your batter should be full of bubbles and risen a LOT. Scoop out a scant 1/4 cup of batter. (The batter will be a little bit stretchy, like yeast dough, but still thin enough to pour and spread.) Pour batter into each ring. It might need a bit of encouragement, so gently help it spread to the edges of the ring, with a greased spoon or your finger.

After about 4 minutes, use a pair of tongs to carefully remove the rings. Careful, they're hot!! Cook the crumpets for a total of about 10 minutes on the first side, until the tops are full of small bubbles/holes, and looking a bit dry around the edges. The bottoms will be light-golden brown. Time to carefully flip them! If the uncooked side looks full of bubbles, but they haven't popped yet, give the crumpets a firm tap or two against the griddle while they're balanced on your spatula, to pop those bubbles.

Cook the for an additional 5-8 minutes, to finish cooking the insides and gently brown the tops. (Technically the traditional crumpet tops aren't browned, but they're yummier this way!)

Remove the crumpets from the pan, and repeat with the remaining batter, until all the crumpets are cooked. Serve warm. Or cool completely, wrap in plastic, and store at room temperature. (Apparently they also freeze very well!) To enjoy, warm in the toaster. Serve with butter, or butter and jam.