Is it just my lockdown brain that is causing me to crave foods I haven’t had in years and years? Are others going through the same thing? I am frantically trying to avoid baking ….. well if I bake, we will have to eat the results!!
My current craving is for rice pudding. I haven’t succumbed to that YET!
The craving I did give in to was crumpets. I cannot remember when I last had crumpets. It was probably when we still lived in Dublin. However, recently the word got in to my brain and I just had to have some. I am not exaggerating when I say I spent weeks looking up various recipes and dithering about making them. I decided they would be too difficult. The recipes called for ‘muffin rings’. I have never in my life come across a ‘muffin ring’.
Did the ‘google’ thing and yes you can buy rings especially to have perfectly round muffins.
And, then, wonder of wonders I discovered there is such a thing as a pikelet, in other words an irregular shaped muffin.
I was good to go. And, let me tell you despite all my dithering and hopping from one recipe to another, they so easy to make.
In fact, the only problem with them is that…. they are so easy to make you will be making them TOO much.
Ingredients:
- 225g Strong flour
- 10 fl. oz Milk
- 2 fl. oz Water
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 pack Yeast (7 g)
- Pinch of Caster Sugar
- A little butter
Method:
Combine milk and water and heat gently until just warm. Just warm enough that you can touch.
Mix your dry ingredients together. Make a well in the centre and gradually add in the milk. Cover your bowl with clingfilm. You now need to set this aside and let the mixture double in size. Obviously, the time involved depends on how warm your kitchen is.
Here is my TOP TIP to speed up the process .. place bowl in the oven with the oven light on. This brings temperature in oven up to about 22 deg. C and your mixture will have doubled in about an hour.
To cook your muffins (pikelets), grease a heavy pan with a little butter and place on high heat. Put spoonfuls of the mixture (which will be quite elasticy .. I know not a word, but you’ll know what I mean) on the pan and cook for a few minutes each side.
As with making pancakes I have found that the first one is not the best! However, they more you make the better they get. Don’t rush the process, and the longer you can leave on pan (without burning) the more they will rise.
The quantity above makes 7 or 8.
Hope you make them and enjoy!
A Year In Redwood 
Er, no! Please Margaret. I usually love your posts but this one is an insult to the name of pikelet and every baker in my Yorkshire heritage is screaming. If you don’t leave them on the first side long enough for bubbles to come up and burst you don’t have air holes for the butter to melt into. Also if you don’t add a teaspoon of bicarb in a little water at the end likewise you won’t get the bubbles. There was a great two part discussion in December from the equally great Dr Neil Buttery in a blog I can’t recommend highly enough. https://britishfoodhistory.com/2020/12/03/to-make-crumpets/ Personally I use the Dorothy Hartley recipe but if you don’t find Neil’s an improvement on yours I suggest you investigate Elizabeth David’s. Sourdough pikelets are good too – but they still need the last minute addition of bubbles. What you’ve described was just a griddle cake in our house.
Sorry Kathryn if I have insulted your heritage!!! I didn’t mean to. In all the recipes I looked up none mentioned bicarb. Will definitely look at these two you’ve mentioned. These did have bubbles though 🙂
Delicious! Thanks for sharing. I love it!