I ordered the River Cottage Handbook No.3 and was desperately waiting for it to arrive last week. When it came I was too impatient to read through the fifty or so pages on bread before getting into the kitchen so I decided that I would skip the bread making and go straight to crumpets making instead.
The recipe is basically as follows:
450 g plain white flour
350 ml warm milk
350 ml warm water
5 g powdered yeast
Whisk up and leave for an hour until bubbly, then add...
10 g salt
1 tsp baking powder
Pour into ring and cook for about 5 mins until top is set and then flip over for 2-3 mins.
I am very upset at the results. I spent a sunny afternoon over a hot stove for no good reason it seems (boo hoo). Don't ask me why I decided to make crumpets on a sunny afternoon but I did.
First mistake was to fill the crumpet ring to the brim as you can see, the mixture went in OK but then bubbled over the top.
Secondly, I didn't wait until the top had actually set before flipping it over, as you can see from the photo above there were some bubbles but not lots as described in the book.
So it looked pretty good and I slathered it in butter and home made jam, drool (!), and cut it open only to find that it wasn't cooked inside. I ate it anyway and it wasn't unpleasant, the crumpet itself actually had a taste unlike the bland rubbery ones from the supermarket.
I read the instructions in the book and it said that if there weren't lots of bubbles then the batter was too thick and so add some water to thin it out. I added probably 100ml, didn't make any difference, added another couple of hundred mils and there were more bubbles but the batter was so runny that the bubbles just sealed over again.
No matter what I did the crumpets just didn't cook all the way through. I tried playing with the heat, the consistency of the batter, the amount of batter per crumpet and nothing worked. I repeat, I was VERY upset.
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| Array of disastrous crumpets |
Please leave any hints or tips for successful crumpet making. Has anyone else tried the River Cottage recipe?Please let me know how it went.
Pour into ring and cook for about 5 mins until top is set and then flip over for 2-3 mins.
2 comments:
Tried the recipe three times (the River Cottage handbook American version)with exact same results as you did. In fact, I found your post searching the internet trying to figure out what I did wrong. I added a lot of extra water to get bubbles and got a lot. The picture perfect crumpet on the outside, gooey and mushy on the inside. Yuck! Very disappointed -- in me initially, but reading of other people's problems with this particular recipe with River Cottage. The only thing I can think of is that I/we followed the recipe to the T and this is how some people like to eat their crumpets.
After trying and testing another couple of recipes I found that this one works perfectly http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/crumpets_93122
Good luck and happy crumpet making :)
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