How To Make Or Buy An English-Style Crumpet - Photo by Trevor Sharot

Home Made Crumpet With Melting Butter and photo by Trevor Sharot, photographer. Copyright Trevor Sharot.

Problem
How do you make the holes in crumpets? Where should I cook them? This has puzzled us for years. Trevor, who is a keen cook, sent me a photo of a ciabatta he had made. I had just read about crumpets. I complimented him on his expertise in making the ciabatta and asked him, "Could you make a crumpet?

Answer
When I set my husband, Trevor Sharot, this task, I knew he could do it. He can do anything. His major skill is research. He is also very practical. He prefers maths to English, because you can get 100% in a maths exam. He is good at research and also practical, a good combination of qualities.

You can see we are different types by the way we write. I would say, "It tastes delicious, yummy, the butter melts into the holes, it is soft on the inside and crisp on the edges and chewable."

He said:

'The holes are due to the raising agents. I used every available raising agent, yeast and baking powder."

So baking powder had the power. (I got that nice bit of alliteration from a typo. This proves there's a silver lining in every cloud.)

Ingredients
Flour
milk
water
a little butter
raising agents: yeast and baking powder

The sequence is

 batter after raising for a couple of hours

3 tbsp of batter in the ring

after the 10 minutes cooking

flipped over to show the base and for another 5 minutes upside down

flipped back when done

cross-section

Where to buy

Crumpets are made in the UK by Wharburtons. You can buy crumpets in supermarkets such as Tescos. Or chat to your friendly home baker, or make your own.

Author

Angela Lansbury

Travel writer and phtographer

Author and speaker

Interesting websites:

Trevor Sharot photographer 
http://trevorsharotphotography.com
http://grapedeal.com
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/crumbs-so-thats-how-british-make.html

Ciabatta at La Dolce Vita in London

I looked up ciabatta in Wikipedia and this is what I found:

Ciabatta was first produced in 1982 by Arnaldo Cavallari, a baker and miller from Adria, a small town close to Venice in Veneto. Cavallari and other bakers in Italy were concerned by the popularity of sandwiches made from baguettes imported from France, which were endangering their businesses, so set about trying to create an Italian alternative to make sandwiches.