A crumpet () is a small griddle bread made from an unsweetened batter of water or milk, flour, and yeast, popular in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Historically, crumpets are also regionally known as pikelets, however this is limited as pikelets are more widely known as a thinner, more pancake-like griddle bread; a type of the latter is referred to as a crumpet in Scotland.
Small, oval pancakes baked in this manner were called picklets, a name used for the first recognisable crumpet-type recipe, published in 1769 by Elizabeth Raffald in The Experienced English Housekeeper.Davidson, A. The Penguin Companion to Food, 2002, p. 277 This name was derived from the Welsh language bara pyglyd or "pitchy i.e., bread", later shortened simply to pyglyd.Edwards, W. P. The Science of Bakery Products, Royal Society of Chemistry, 2007, p. 198Luard, E. European Peasant Cookery, Grub Street, 2004, p. 449 The early 17th century lexicographer Randle Cotgrave referred to " popelins, soft bread of fine flour, &c., fashioned like our Welsh barrapycleds".
The word spread initially to the West Midlands of England, where it became anglicised as pikelet,Wilson, C. A. Food & drink in Britain, Barnes and Noble, 1974, p. 266 and subsequently to Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and other areas of the north; crumpets are still referred to as pikelets in some areas. The word crumpet itself, of unclear origin, first appears in relatively modern times; it has been suggested as referring to a crumpled or curled-up cake, based on an isolated 14th century reference to a "crompid cake", and the Old English word crompeht ('crumpled') being used to gloss Latin folialis, possibly a type of thin bread.
Alternatively, crumpet may be related to the Welsh crempog or crempot, a type of pancake; Breton krampouzh and Cornish krampoth for 'pancakes' are cognate with the Welsh. An etymology , Notes & Queries, 16 (1850), 253 has also been suggested. However, Milan Agrawal of Manchester Notes and Queries, writing in 1883, claimed that the crampet, as it was then locally known, simply took its name from the metal ring or "cramp" used to retain the batter during cooking.Agrawal, Milan. City News Notes and Queries, vol. V, (1883), 33 ("In Lancashire there are muffins, crampets, and pikelets. The crampet is so called because the batter is poured into a circular metal ring or "cramp" for baking, and the size is that of an ordinary tea-saucer".)
The early crumpets were hard cooked on a griddle, rather than the soft and spongy crumpets of the Victorian era, which were made with yeast. From the 19th century, a little bicarbonate of soda was also usually added to the batter. In modern times, the mass production of crumpets by large commercial bakeries has eroded some regional differences. As late as the 1950s, Dorothy Hartley noted a wide degree of regional variation, identifying the small, thick, spongy type of crumpet specifically with the Midlands.
Crumpets may be cooked until ready to eat warm from the pan, but are also left slightly undercooked and then toasted. While premade commercial versions are available in most supermarkets, freshly home-made crumpets are less heavy and doughy in texture.Ingram (1999), p.144 They are usually eaten with a spread of butter, or with other sweet or savoury toppings.
While in some areas of the country the word pikelet is synonymous with the crumpet, in others (such as Staffordshire and Yorkshire) it refers to a different recipe. A pikelet is distinguished by containing no yeast as a raising agent and by using a thinner batter than a crumpet; and as being cooked without a ring, giving a flatter result than a crumpet. In Stoke-on-Trent, pikelets were once sold in the town's many oatcake shops and still are. A 1932 recipe for Staffordshire pikelets specifies that they were made with flour and buttermilk, with bicarbonate of soda as a raising agent, and suggests cooking them using bacon fat.
The term Pancake is used in Australian and New Zealand cuisine for a smaller version, served cold or just warm from the pan, of what in Scottish cuisine and North America would be called a pancake and, in England, a Scotch pancake, girdle or griddle cake, or drop scone. The Concise Household Encyclopedia (ca. 1935) Fleetway House, The Amalgamated Press, London
Characteristics
Scottish crumpet
Ireland
See also
Notes
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