Easy Homemade Crumpets Recipe

Here in the Hudson Valley, Indian summer has finally given over to fall. It’s damp and chilly—and that means a culinary switch here at Copywriters’ Kitchen.

We’re swapping salads for soups, peaches for apples, and Jersey tomatoes (ciao, mi amor) for Long Island Cheese pumpkins.

Evening comes earlier each day.

When the boy lurches in from school at 5 o’clock, the sun is almost fallen. He’s tired after a 9-hour day of classes, yearbook editing and cross country practice.

It’s tempting to let him slink into his room for a head start on the four hours of homework that lie ahead. But he needs a break—and I need a dose of child. He’s our last.

So we take tea. And not just a cup of tea-bag tea. We brew proper pots of loose leaf. He likes Harney’s Paris—a floral black tea blend—sweet and milky. I prefer Assam. Very sweet, no milk.



We eat dinner later, when my husband slogs up the hill from the Metro North station in the pitch dark. So tea is the perfect bridge meal. I make it fairly substantial.

Crackers and cheese. A little crock of roasted, caramelized yams—I make a huge batch on the weekends and we eat them all week. Apples, oranges and—in deepest winter—tiny clementines. We nibble any tasty leftovers that can be eaten as finger food—today we had a few crispy falafel patties.

But my son’s all-time favorite teatime food is crumpets.

These soft, yeasty griddle cakes are similar to English muffins. Thinned with milk and water, crumpet batter is a little gooier than English muffin dough. The fried cakes are also thinner than English muffins, as well as having a more tender and spongy crumb.

Crumpets are cooked in tin rings to produce uniform rounds that will make your baker’s heart swell with pride. You can buy “official” crumpet rings or do as I do: use well-buttered biscuit cutters. As an alternative, make your own crumpet rings from tuna or small pineapple cans—only make sure you buy cans that let you cut out both top and bottom. Many cans today are made with rounded bottoms that are impossible to cut.

Do yeast doughs put you in a panic? Not to worry. These Easy Homemade Crumpets, adapted from a King Arthur Flour recipe, require no kneading, proofing, etc. You simply dump all ingredients into a large bowl and whip with an electric mixer for two minutes. Cover bowl with a wet towel or buttered wax paper and place in a warm, draft-free place. An hour later you’ll see the batter has doubled in volume and is ready to bake.



I make a large batch of crumpets on the weekend—this recipe yields 2 dozen crumpets of varying sizes—and we eat them all week. To reheat, pop a crumpet into the toaster. When done, spread with sweet butter. As the melted butter drips down the sides of the crumpet and over your fingers, take a quick bite. The crumpet’s crunchy crust yields to warm, pillowy innards. Wash it down with a gulp of hot, sweet tea. Repeat until restored.

Now you’re ready for AP Chem—or that last edit of your blog post.

In addition to sweet butter, crumpets are great with jam, apple butter, honey or a slice of cheddar cheese. Don’t limit crumpet eating to teatime. Alongside a couple of fried eggs, crumpets make a great breakfast. They turn a plain bowl of soup into a special meal.

Easy Homemade Crumpets Recipe

2 cups lukewarm water
1 cup lukewarm milk
2 tablespoons melted butter, plus extra butter for greasing the griddle and rings
3 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons salt

1. Place all ingredients in a large bowl. Blend with an electric mixer, starting on low then turning up to high speed after ingredients are combined. Beat at high speed for two minutes.
2. Cover bowl with a wet tea towel or buttered wax paper. Set in a warm, draft-free place—I use an unlit oven.
3. Let the batter sit for an hour. When you return it will have doubled in volume.
4. In the meantime, generously butter your crumpet rings or biscuit cutters. Heat a griddle or heavy skillet over a medium low flame. Run a slick of butter over the griddle and arrange the rings closely together in the center of the griddle.
5. Using a ladle or small measuring cup—a 1/3 cup metal measure works perfectly—scoop up about ¼ cup of batter. You’ll notice this maneuver is a little tricky—the batter is sticky and stretchy. Once you’ve filled the measure, run the cup’s edge along the bowl to cut off the extra gooey batter. Pour the batter into one of the rings, filling it about one third. Fill remaining rings.
6. Check and adjust flame if needed: you want to cook the crumpets until little bubbles appear and burst, leaving tiny craters—but you don’t want to overcook the crumpet bottoms. It’s one of those variable things, you’ll find yourself adjusting the flame up and down until you get it right. The crumpets take 4-5 minutes to cook on the first side.
7. Once the little craters have formed and the sides of the crumpets dry and retract slightly from the sides of the rings, remove the rings. You can usually do this by giving the ring a firm shake and lifting upward. If the cake sticks, loosen sides with a butter knife and remove the ring. If you don’t have asbestos fingers as I do, you may need to use tongs or a potholder to lift the rings; the tin gets very hot.
8. After you remove the rings, flip the crumpets over and cook for another 2 minutes or until bottoms are golden.
9. Continue cooking crumpets until all the batter is used up, re-buttering the rings before setting them on the griddle again and greasing the griddle occasionally as needed. You may also need to wipe off baked-on batter from inside the rings from time to time. Serve crumpets warm, or cool completely and store in an airtight container in the fridge. To reheat crumpets, pop them into a toaster.

Makes 2-dozen crumpets.