Crumpets with honeyed butter and caramelised bananas

Sorry for the radio silence, babes. Had a bit of a strange lurgy recently that's had me in a funk and off my feet. Sleep was the order of the day, and I succumbed. How good is your bed when you're under the weather? I climbed in at about 3pm yesterday and didn't get out until lunchtime today. Did the trick.

How I would have loved some crumpets when I woke from my slumber this morning. My tasty little crumpet of a friend, Andrew, helped me whip up these babies a week or so ago. We'd planned to whip them up and spend the rest of the morning in having a kiki, sipping tea and catching up on office goss.


This, unfortunately, was one of those situations where I severely underestimated how long a crumpet takes to 'whip up'. Activating yeast requires patience and a full tummy, because you won't be chowing down for a good couple of hours. Andrew turned up a 9am, expecting a feast of epic proportions within 30 minutes. I had some Pie-Scrap cookies to sate his hunger, so we were good for another hour, thankfully. Though, it's not him I was concerned about: a hungry Bennetto is not a pretty sight.

Even though these did take a good while to whip up, I think you could easily cut down by prepping them the night before and keeping the mixture in the fridge. A slow activation of the yeast is by no means a bad thing, and will probably only serve to improve the little blighters.

Honeyed butter was a very simple accompaniment to the main crumpetty event. Butter + honey + mixing = delicious.

And seriously, who can go past a caramelised banana? It's like the natural tastiness of a banana, plus the unnatural tastiness of caramel. What could possibly be wrong with this picture?

This made a batch of around a dozen crumpets. Andrew took the remainder home (including a severely disfigured one) for his partner, along with the honeyed butter. It was the least I could do after starving him for a couple of hours, watching this control freak do her thang in the kitchen. Crumpets are adequate payoff for that, right?

Ingredients

Adapted from Gourmet Traveller

400ml milk
20g butter
1 tsp caster sugar
4g yeast
250g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
1 banana
2 tbsp honey
1/2 cup butter

Photo courtesy of Andrew Lothian

Heat milk and butter over a low heat until butter melts. Remove from heat and add about 1/t of the milk to the yeast and sugar, stirring to combine. Set aside for 10 minutes or until yeast has activated and become foamy.

Add the yeast mixture to the flour and mix in the remaining milk. Cover and leave to foam for around 1 hour.

Combine the bicarb with 1 tbsp water and mix to a smooth paste. Add to the batter and mix to combine. Leave to stand again, this time around 30 minutes.

Heat butter in a frypan over medium-low heat. Pop in some egg rings (well greased) and add some batter to around half the height of the rings. Cook for around five minutes (covered) then remove the rings and cook for a further minute.

To make the honeyed butter, beat the butter and honey on high in an electric mixer for around 3 minutes or until pale and soft.

To caramelise bananas, melt 1 tsp butter in a frypan and add sliced bananas, cooking until caramelised on both sides.

Serve crumpets with a scoop of butter and some slices of banana.