This is Somerset --It's been what you might call muffin weather of late. Not to mention crumpet and pikelet weather as well. In fact it's been muffin weather pretty much non-stop since the autumn. If not earlier.
But then if you are partial to an old-fashioned English tea-time treat, any sort of weather is muffin weather.
And you may notice the use of the word "English" in the foregoing. For what we are talking about today are the genuine yeast-based, griddled muffins as purveyed by the muffin man of nursery rhyme fame and, indeed, his forebears and descendants.
Not American muffins, which look like cupcakes on steroids and are an entirely different kettle of fish – fish being one of the few commodities which haven't been incorporated, insofar, into cupcakes yet.
Give it time. The French have latched on to cupcakes as avidly as they embraced crumble a few years ago and popular recipes now include a version featuring Bayonne ham and ewe's cheese. Indeed cupcakes have taken La France by storm to such an extent that its inhabitants almost appear to be claiming them as their own invention.
Thus not only is there Le Cupcake patisserie in Aix-en-Provence but there exist, even more inexplicably, Le Cupcake Shoppe in Pittsburgh, PA, and Le Cupcake Lounge in Sydney. It is all too confusing. Especially when you start probing the etymology of "muffin" and discover that we probably borrowed the word in the first place from the Old French term "moufflet", meaning "soft" when applied to bread. So an English muffin is really second cousin twice removed to a brioche.
Muffins really took off here in the 19th century when street foods burgeoned to feed the masses thronging the new industrial centres – a movement which also saw the arrival of fish and chips as speedier rail transport allowed the main ingredient to reach the cities while still fresh.
The muffin man always announced his whereabouts by ringing a bell but so numerous had the vendors become and so clamorous the tintinnabulation in every town around tea time, that in the 1840s Parliament passed an Act outlawing the use of the audible advertisement – though the prohibition had little effect. But if muffins, crumpets and pikelets went out of vogue for a couple of generations they are certainly back now. They are the last word, le dernier cri in comfort food and a wonderful pretext, as someone has put it, for eating melted butter.
Making them at home is far simpler than it at first may seem. The only specialised kit you'll need are crumpet rings which will hold your crumpet batter in place and stop it running all over the pan and turning into pikelets – which, if a further note of confusion were required, they call drop scones in Australia
But a note of caution. All these delicacies are to be eaten with real butter, not some vile, artificially coloured chemical sludge describing itself as a "spread". Anyone ignoring this guidance will very soon regret it, as the royal cook Josiah Pauncefoot makes abundantly clear in his Ladies Compendium of Receipts and Propre Cokeing of 1663:
"Accursed be he who do spread hys Muffins with Margarine and such filthy Concoctions and Stuffes as be purveyed by Cheapjacks to those of simple Mind, the while pretending that they be in some Manner wholesome and of great Benefit to their Health.
"So shall hys Roses wilt and die in the span of a single Night; hys Dog break out in foul Boyles; and hys Hose descend of their own Volition upon hys encountering any Lady in the Street."
Don't say you weren't warned.
Muffins
Ingredients for 12
250g each strong white bread flour and plain white flour; 7g sachet of dried yeast; 10g salt; 330g milk and water, equally mixed and hand hot; semolina for dredging
Method
Place the flours in a deep bowl, mix in the yeast, carefully weigh the milk and water and stir it in.
Leave for a minute then add the salt and bring together to form a dough. Turn out on to a lightly floured work surface and knead for about ten minutes or until the mixture becomes smooth and elastic. Clean and flour the bowl, replace the dough, cover with a cloth and leave in a warm place such as an airing cupboard for two hours.
Lightly flour the work surface again, roll out the dough to an inch thickness and cut into 12 rounds using a 3½in-cutter. Place on a baking sheet liberally dusted with semolina, cover with a cloth and leave for an hour.
Heat a non-stick pan for one minute, turn the heat down to low, flip the muffins over to coat their tops with the semolina and cook a few at a time allowing seven minutes each side. Remove to a wire rack to cool.
Store in an airtight box or freeze in batches until required. To serve, pull apart and toast on both sides and spread generously with butter.
Sultana, bran and cinnamon muffins
Ingredients for 12
250g strong white bread flour; 150g plain white flour; 100g oat bran; 75g sultanas; 2tpns powdered cinnamon; 10g salt; 10g dried yeast; 350g hand-hot water; semolina for dredging
Method
As for the plain muffins
Crumpets
Ingredients
350g strong white bread flour; 7g sachet dried yeast; 325ml water and 150ml milk, hand-hot; 2tspns salt; ½tspn bicarbonate of soda
Method
Mix the flour and yeast in a deep bowl, add the water and mix in, cover and leave in a warm place for two hours. Add the salt and soda to the milk and beat into the mixture.
Lightly grease a hot griddle or frying pan and four crumpet rings. Place the rings in the pan and pour in enough batter to reach half-way up the sides. Cook on a low heat for ten minutes until set then remove the rings, turn over and cook the tops for two minutes.
To serve, toast on both sides and top with butter.
Pikelets
Ingredients
225g plain flour; pinch of salt; 50g caster sugar; 150ml milk; 1tspn bicarbonate of soda; 2tblspns boiling water
Method
Sieve the flour and salt into a bowl and stir in the sugar. Beat in the milk. Dissolve the soda in the water and beat in. Drop tablespoons onto a griddle or heavy frying pan, cook until golden brown underneath then flip over and cook until the other side is lightly browned.
Serve lightly toasted or warmed with lashings of butter. Reported by This is 19 hours ago.