Third attempt

Batch 1, Phase 1

It being pancake day, aka Shrove Tuesday, it seemed appropriate to have another go at crumpets, with the recipes of crumpets and pancakes being very similar.

Nominally the same recipe as on the previous occasion with eight ounces of flour, as noticed at reference 1, but things turned out rather differently, with the yeast failing to perform at either the 15 minute milk stage or the 45 minute dough stage - even with this last stretched to 60 minutes, with the last 10 minutes in the airing cupboard, rather warmer than the top of the cooker. So none of the interesting frothy business when I dipped the ladle in.

Half filled two of the rings and unlike last time, no rising up in the rings, although plenty of fat bubbling up around the edges, as can be seen if you click to enlarge on Batch 1. Cooking at mark 3 seemed to be about right and the cooked crumpets were brown rather than black, with much the same difference between first and second side as one gets with a pancake. More or less cooked all the way through, with rather more tubular bubbles (after the fashion of shop crumpets) than I thought likely, given the absence of yeast action.

Batch 3, Phase 2

By the end of the proceedings, I had graduated to three rings at a time, which seemed to work better than four. I had also turned the heat down to mark 2 on the grounds that the pan had heated up enough. Rings continuing to slip off the half cooked crumpets OK, dental forceps continuing to be just the thing for doing the slipping - trying not to touch them as they do get very hot (in the rape seed oil).

The last crumpet, the ninth, was about a quarter of an inch thick and was one of the best. So it seems that so much the thinner, so much the better.

One taken with Marmite.

Next step, allow more time and use the airing cupboard to get the yeast action back.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/second-attempt.html.