As an Englishwoman, I am particularly partial to crumpets, which are related somewhat to English muffins but oh, so superior!
Until recently they were for sale only during the winter months, and to me they were the ultimate comfort food — a hot cup of tea and hot buttered crumpet with or without preserves.
Recipes for the two are largely similar today, though not so in the past. They are both designed to be cooked on a hot griddle; the crumpet is generally cooked only on one side and pale on the top with distinct holes. They are not split before toasting and eating.
Before we get into the recipe, I would like to recap some history with the help of a blogger: The Foodies Companion.
Crumpets are an Anglo-Saxon invention that were initially hard pancakes baked on a griddle. The term has Celtic origins. The earliest reference comes from a 12th-century text mentioning a “crompid cake” and it is related to the Breton “kranpoez” or the Welsh “crempog.”
People are also reading…
The 1649 Oxford dictionary described the crumpet as a mixture of buckwheat flour, beaten egg, milk and baking powder. These were different from the more familiar soft, spongy crumpets of the Victorian era, when yeast was added to the dough and the crumpet was baked in a ring mold to hold the batter while it cooked.
Commercial British makers developed the holes that appear on the top of the crumpet when it is cooked by adding extra baking powder to the dough. These are the crumpets of my youth and those that I make outside of Britain, since they do not seem to be exported to wherever I have lived.
The British “muffin” was originally made from leftover bread and biscuit dough scraps and mashed potatoes, which the cook fried on a hot griddle to produce a light, crusty muffin. These were eaten by the “downstairs” servants in England’s Victorian society before they eventually moved “upstairs.” These muffins could be split and toasted over an open fire and served with various toppings. They became so popular that hawkers sold them on the streets of London and the song, “Do You Know the Muffin Man?” became a big hit.
The modern English muffin is, in fact, an American invention created by Samuel Bath Thomas, an 1874 immigrant to New York City from Plymouth, England. He opened his own bakery in 1880 and there he created a “toaster crumpet,” a flatter version of the English crumpet that did not contain baking powder used to create holes as in the traditional crumpet.
His secret process did retain the “holes” that crumpets have on their outside to trap butter and other toppings, but the muffin “holes” are on the inside of the muffin. “Fork splitting” the muffins before toasting retained the holes. These Thomas English muffins became very popular in the U.S. and have even been re-introduced to the British.
As a consumer, things you need to know are: Crumpets are always made with milk and are made with a loose batter rather than muffins, which are made from a firmer dough and not always with milk. Crumpets are generally cooked on only one side, so the bottom is flat and toasted while the top is speckled with holes for the butter, etc. English muffins are more bread-like and are toasted on both sides.
