Pretty simple one this, crumpets are back in stock! But I can't just have a one sentence article, so here's a full introduction to the wonders of bubbly bread products.
Right up there with the components of a Full English Breakfast (back bacon, sausages, black pudding), Crumpets were the food I missed most before we started Breakfast Champion.
Homemade crumpets; delicious, but a pain to make...
I made my own a few times, but I can never be bothered with the fiddliness, and you have to make loads for it to be worthwhile (they go stale, or you end up eating forty in a day). So I was ecstatic when our chef finally decided to make them for the store.
But, for those people not from the UK, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, or Australia (which is most people), what the hell are Crumpets anyway?
As with most things, they're best with Marmite...
I once saw a French couple walk out of a branch of Sainsbury's with a packet of crumpets. They proceeded to open the pack, take one out each, take a big bite of them, and then just look really confused. Toast them and butter them, then butter them again (and probably flip them and toast them again after that first 'toast them' as well). You can also eat them straight out of the pan if you make them yourself. They're much more yeast-forward in flavor if you do that; not everyone's thing.
There used to be as many different varieties of crumpet as there were areas of the UK and Ireland, but over time these have been whittled right down. Nowadays, you're mostly seeing the Midlands version (the ones we have on the store), deep and cooked in a ring, and the more northern/Scottish pikelets, shallow and pancake-like, no ring. It might just be growing up in the Midlands, but I've literally never seen pikelets for sale anywhere.
I look at this and think," How about the width of pikelets and the depth of crumpets?" Best of both worlds...
People have all sorts on them, from jam, marmalade, golden syrup, and honey, to peanut butter, eggs, bacon, cheese, and chutney. But if you want them classic style, simply layer on the butter until it's fully saturated, and dripping out the bottom. You've added enough if you need to wipe your chin with a tissue afterward (could probably do another Carry On reference after that sentence, actually).
