chocolate crumpets with honeycomb butter

chocolate crumpets with honeycomb butter

• 14 Aug 2017

A few months ago, I saw a photo of chocolate crumpets on instagram. I was immediately intrigued and decided I needed to make some. I didn't have a recipe so I hunted online but in the end decided to go it alone, adapting my regular crumpet recipe. In a moment of inspired genius I decided to make a small quantity of Bill Granger's honeycomb butter with which to top the finished product.

I kept my fingers crossed that all would go well. The chocolate crumpets weren't as bubbly as the regular crumpets but topped with the honeycomb butter were still mighty fine.



I promptly scoffed two and stored the rest in the freezer for later. Just in case you were wondering, these crumpets are not sweet, just chocolately.

If you'd like to make some of these chocolate crumpets at home, here's the recipe. If you don't feel like making the honeycomb butter, then I'm sure a chocolate crumpet topped with butter and maple syrup would be just as nice.

Chocolate Crumpets - makes 18 8.5cm crumpets

Ingredients

1½ cups of milk

50g dark chocolate (70%)

15 gm milk chocolate

1½ tsp sugar

7g dried yeast

355g plain flour

3 tbs cocoa

½ tsp salt

½ tsp baking soda

200ml water

Method

Coarsely chop the chocolates. Pour the milk into a saucepan and heat until just warm. Transfer into a bowl and add the chopped chocolate and sugar. Stir until the chocolate melts before adding the yeast. Make sure the milk is lukewarm because you don't want to kill the yeast. Allow to stand for 10-15 minutes or until the milk starts to bubble.

Sift the flour, cocoa and salt into a bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the chocolate milk/yeast mixture to the flour and beat until completely smooth. The mixture will be quite thick at this stage. Cover with plastic wrap and stand in a warm place for 1- 1½ hours until doubled in volume and full of air bubbles.

Mix the baking soda with the water and combine this with the crumpet mixture to make a kind of gloopy batter. Leave to stand for 30 minutes.

Heat a heavy based frying pan or griddle over a medium heat and grease with a little butter. Thoroughly grease the crumpet moulds and regrease them between batches. Place the crumpet rings on the hot surface and place 2 tbs of mixture inside the ring. Don’t overfill as the mixture will rise in the rings whilst cooking.

Within a short period of time your crumpets should get small bubbles all over the surface that begin to break. Cook for about 10 minutes until the surface is covered in broken bubbles and the top is dry.  Remove the crumpet rings, turn gently and cook on the other side until lightly browned. They normally take another 5 or so minutes to cook through. Remove from the pan and wrap the crumpets in a clean tea towel while you cook the rest. Any leftovers can be frozen for later; defrosted and toasted.

To serve, top with a slice of Bill Granger’s honeycomb butter

Bill Granger's Honeycomb Butter

250g unsalted butter, softened

100g sugar honeycomb, crushed with a rolling pin

2 tbs honey

Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. Shape into a log on plastic wrap, roll, seal and chill in a refrigerator for 2 hours.

Store any leftover honeycomb butter in the freezer, it's great on toast.

btw, no need to thank me, just head into the kitchen and make some of these!

See you all again soon,

Jillian