I had a best friend when I was four - we’ll call her Molly.
She was precocious, exacting, fussy and charming. She’d turn her nose up at any part of chicken apart from the breast; the rest she dismissed as “jelly”. She’d only eat cheddar of grade 4 maturity, and only strawberry-flavoured yoghurt. And she always had her birthday cakes professionally fondant iced - no homemade buttercream for Molly.
She also taught me about excess.
When she had a bath, she’d pour the entire bottle of bubble bath in. When we had sleepovers at her house, we’d have the entire selection of pick and mix for our (8pm) midnight feast. But most importantly, and most excessive, was her approach to breakfast. When we came downstairs, she’d clamber up the shelves to reach a sacred, and very large, jar of strawberry jam. With well-versed hands, she’d swivel open the lid, and pourthe preserve on to a piece of toast. The jam would pool into a viscous glistening mass, bejewelled with strawberries, until it was at least 2cm high. The bread would buckle and collapse. The aim: to finish it before the poor overburdened medium disintegrated (and before her parents came down). Pure, unadulterated bliss.
I think of Molly and her jam most breakfasts: the moderate scrapings that I see members of my family apply to their toast seem pitiful and joyless.
I overlook this mostly, but when it comes to crumpets, I cannot abide a mean topping. Crumpets with their trypophobia-triggering craters are designed to be filled. A miserable smear of topping will merely be absorbed by this porous medium. Only a Molly-sized portion of jam will suffice.
And the crumpets are even better when home-made.
Store-bought can be bland, powdery and stodgy. These, however, are fluffy and light, yet sturdy enough to provide an excellent foundation for several storeys of topping. Don’t be put off by the need for yeast - the whole process takes just over an hour and once you’ve made your own, it’ll be impossible to revert to store-bought.
To make crumpets perfectly circular, you’ll need rings. If you don’t have any crumpet rings, you can use metal cookie cutters. You could do them freestyle, too (they’ll still taste great but you won’t get that holey look).
VEGAN CRUMPETS - RECIPE
Makes 12-15 (depending on ring size)
Ingredients
25g fresh yeast or 12g dry active yeast
1tbsp sugar
350ml lukewarm plant ‘milk’ (I use unsweetened almond)
400g flour (plain or spelt)
1 tsp salt
200ml water
1/2 tspn bicarbonate of soda
vegetable oil (for cooking the crumpets)
Toppings (optional)
Jam
Fresh fruit
Berry compote
Chocolate spread
Maple syrup
Method
1) If using fresh yeast, cream together the yeast and sugar in a small bowl until the sugar dissolves the yeast into a liquid (this signifies that it’s fresh), then pour in the lukewarm milk. If using dry yeast, mix it together with the sugar and lukewarm milk, and set aside for 5 minutes for it to activate.
2) Into the bowl of a stand mixer, (or a bowl if making by hand), pour in the yeast mixture, flour and salt. Beat together either with the paddle fixture (on a medium high speed) or by hand for 3 minutes until it turns sticky and stringy. Cover with a tea towel and place in a warm place to rise for an hour or until it has doubled.
3) Mix together the water and bicarb, and then beat that into the dough until it turns into a smooth batter.
4) Pour enough oil into a large frying pan to coat the bottom, and place on a medium-high heat. Grease the insides of the rings with oil, and place them flat in the pan (so that there are no gaps at the bottom through which batter could leak. I usually use 3 rings at once but it depends on the size of your pan and how many rings you have.
5) Pour batter into the rings to about 1cm in depth. Then continue to cook until bubbles start to appear (about 4-5 minutes). I like to create the classic puckered surface, so I don’t flip them but just let the heat from the base of the pan do the work, but you can flip them once they're set around the sides if you want to speed things up. You can remove the rings with tongs once the crumpets are set around the sides too. This allows them to cool before you do the next batch.
6) To create the next batch, wipe the rings clean of any remaining batter, grease them again, and repeat.
7) Serve immediately, pour on desired toppings, and devour. They can be frozen in an air tight container and kept for up to three months. Then to serve, just toast, top and eat.
