For those of you wondering what will happen when bread shipments are reduced, and you are thinking of buying flour and yeast and baking your own, I have a solution. A delicious one. Crumpets.
Crumpets are English muffins for adults. Available in British specialty stores, they are amazingly delicious, will keep in the freezer for months.
The only thing is they take forever to crisp up, at least two full cycles of my toaster. Serve with just butter but their highest and best use, Crumpet Egg Benedict.
Interesting…might have to try it
I absolutely love crumpets. Why we don’t make or buy them more often is beyond me. There’s a great little shop down near the Pike Place Market called, appropriately, The Crumpet Shop that makes nice ones. I’ve never had crumpet Benedict, but it sounds AWESOME.
I just found a recipe for them using sourdough discard. So i will likely attempt these tomorrow.
And here are the crumpets
I’ll see your crumpets and raise you some Wolferman’s English muffins:
https://www.wolfermans.com/w/muffins-breads/signature-english-muffins
A friend introduced me to these a few years ago and they’re really good. Better than my one experience with crumpets but I’m willing to believe that wasn’t representative.
The homemade crumpets were a hit with my daughter, she ate one at breakfast and then asked for another as a mid-morning snack.
Wolferman’s don’t have the right texture. They are basically just big, round pieces of bread. For decades Thomas’s had nice irregular nooks and crannies, but a few year ago they were purchased by the Bimbo bakery group… and the bimbos ruined them.
Might have to find a recipe for crumpets.
The great thing about crumpets here in England is that even in supermarkets that sell only terrible bread the crumpets are always good. Strangely, though, we don’t have English muffins, they seem to be an American thing.
They are American, and a poor relative of crumpets.
For the uniniatiated, what’s the actual difference between a crumpet and an English muffin?
Texture mostly, English muffins are much heavier and denser. Crumpets are lighter a bit more airy. The crumb of the muffin is grainier and a bit more coarse.
Crumpets aren’t baked. They aren’t very similar at all.
Some updates:
Do not substitute crumpets for buns when you have a hamburger. Juices leach out and the crumpet gets soggy and nasty.
Crumpets need to be super crisp. Anything less is not good.
I tried a new combination today. Rubbed the crisped crumpet with a clove of raw garlic, then spread with cream cheese, tomatoes bathed in a few drops of olive oil and a little basil. Brilliant.
When I can get fresh mozzarella again, I think this combination with or without prosciutto will be even better.
And don’t forget the marmite!
New update.
Please bow down to the new Crumpet king of NY. The Vermont company from whom I bought my crumpets for some insane reason does not ship crumpets in the Summer, in spite of them being pretty stable.
I am down to my last month, so I called the company on the packaging, and talked to a very nice couple, Lisa and George, will now be able to buy directly from them. If anyone else is looking for bulk sale crumpet purchases, pm me.
Beautiful Crumpets! I’ve been making them with my sourdough discard too. Sometimes, I bastardize them and add chopped chives or scallions (or ramps when I have them) and use them as the base of an Eggs Benedict or a breakfast sandwich. They’re so good!