Crumpets

Makes: 6
Preparation time: 1 hour and 20 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients
550ml full cream milk
2 tblspns dried yeast
2 tblspns white sugar
450g white bread flour
2 tblspns salt
Butter for greasing a frying pan
Egg rings

Method
1.Warm milk in saucepan until you can keep a finger comfortably in the liquid but it feels warm.
2.Pour milk into a bowl; add the yeast and sugar to the milk and mix together well. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and set aside in a warm place for 10 minutes. A sunny spot on the bench is fine. If the yeast is not frothy after 10 minutes tip it out and start again. If the milk was too hot it might have killed the yeast or the yeast may have been too old.
3.In another bowl, sift the flour and add the salt. Make a well in the centre.
4.When the yeast mixture has become frothy, tip into the flour and using a whisk, beat the flour into the liquid using a circular motion. Beat the mixture until it is smooth. It should be like a thick globby batter. If it is too thick, add a little more milk but don’t make it a pouring consistency, otherwise it will not hold its structure.
5.Cover the bowl and leave the batter in a warm place for 45 minutes.
6.Heat a frying pan to medium to hot. Grease the bottom with some butter. Grease 6 egg rings on the inside and put them in the frying pan to heat up.
7.When the rings are hot, spoon mixture in and fill to the top.
8.Cook for 5 minutes until the top is full of holes and no longer looks wet. Remove the rings with tongs. Using a spatula, flip the crumpet and cook on the other side for a minute or two.

Notes
Crumpets can be frozen.