Sourdough crumpets

Toast
fairycakes309 on 28 Apr 2025 at 01:45
Crumpets
Now that my starter is growing well again, I need to use up my discard! I have a fair bit of white flour discard still and now I have a whole wheat starter too. I’ve never had crumpets but followed the KAF sourdough discard recipe https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/sourdough-crumpets-recipe They turned out pretty well, some with 50/50 whole wheat/white flour discard and some just white flour. I preferred the flavor of the whole wheat, but they were all quite tasty with plenty of butter. I used a cast iron griddle on medium heat, about 10 minutes on one side then 5ish on the other. Some of them stuck a bit to the rings, I found that lard worked better than butter but still not 100% necessitating cutting them loose from the rings.

I’ve never made these before as I’m more of an English Muffin fan but these look excellent.

Happy baking,

Ian

looks good! King Arthur never disappoint, do they?

Jay

Good way to use discard. Crumpets are tricky buggers that should have lots of holes, not be too breadlike, but not too doughy either. If you are interested--and I haven't read the KA recipe (recently) to see how it differs--a bakery in England released its "famous crumpet" recipe during the plague a few years ago. You'd have to sub starter for yeast, but that should be easy enough. There have been discussions here about whether to add baking powder or baking soda and at which point to add it.

Warburtons Crumpets

Ingredients (makes 6 crumpets):

  • 150g plain white flour
  • 200ml water
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp dried yeast

Method

Stage 1 – How to make the Crumpet Batter…

  1. Add Flour, Water and Salt to a mixing bowl
  2. Mix vigorously with a whisk until your arm aches (at least 5 minutes) to create your crumpet batter
  3. Mix a few ml’s of water into to your dried yeast
  4. Add sugar, baking powder and yeast mixture to bowl and mix for another 30 seconds until you have a clear batter (and your arm aches even more!)
  5. Cover mixing bowl and put into a warm place for 15 mins (Top tip – make sure your mixing bowl is bigger than you need as it will expand)

Stage 2 – How to bake your crumpets…

  1. Place a greased metal biscuit cutter (any shape cutter you have to hand will also do the trick) into the middle of a non-stick frying pan
  2. Pre-heat your frying pan on a hob on a medium-high heat setting
  3. Before you start, give your batter a stir to remove any large air bubbles
  4. Use a ladle to drop approx. 60g batter into the cutter inside the pan
  5. Wait for approx. 4 mins – carefully lift the ring off the crumpet
  6. Remove baked Crumpet from pan (if the top looks a bit gooey flip over in the pan for a few seconds)
  7. Cool
  8. Repeat the above to make as many as you can eat!
  9. Toast and enjoy with butter, or anything else you fancy to top off your dough-licious bake…