I have always considered myself quite a nice person. I like food of all shapes, flavours and colours. From every country and continent. I don’t discriminate, I am an equal opportunity eater. It’s only the doctors who say I’m intolerant. And certain foods who refuse to tolerate me. They certainly refuse to recognise and respect my right to eat them without major physical discomfort and distress.


Gluten and lactose are not my friends.


Despite the negative attitudes surrounding me from many of those I love best, (cakes, ice cream, hot toast) I decided to become a chef. Not always easy when you live in a bread and milk filled world. I like to think that this has helped me become a better person as I embrace my differences and refuse to let the gluten get me down. I believe InTolerance. I am the InTolerant Chef.

Food should not be about what you can’t eat, but what you can and what you enjoy eating. This blog is about my journey of cooking and eating and discovery. It’s not a definitive guide to allergy awareness nor do my intolerances make me an expert. Your body is your responsibility, not mine. I only know what works for me.


I can tell you this..... No glutens were harmed in the making of this website.

December 1, 2010

Crumpets


I miss Crumpets.

I know it's not a big thing, but the way the melted butter would collect in those little funnels then drip down my fingers, was really quite sublime.
Although it's the start of summer, after days and days and days of rain, it's a tad cool and leaves me wanting a warm breakfast instead of my muesli.

I took my start from an old Delicious magazine with a basic sounding crumpet recipe, but knew it would need tweaking. I faithfully followed the instructions, then stood back to think..... definitely more liquid needed. Oh, that's not gonna work like that! A little change here, a little change there, 3 attempts of cooking style later and, Voila! Crumpets!


Now, we all know that gluten free products can be, shall we say, 'lacking' that certain something that their glutenous cousins take for granted, but these are actually pretty good. The little funnels formed well and held the all important butter, they baked well, and they toasted beautifully. I always like my crumpets a bit over toasted and this wasn't a problem either. Win win for us InTolerants.





Originally the recipe frys the batter in egg rings, but this was disastrous with the gfree mix. The batter overcooked on the base, and set on top before they were cooked through in the middle. I tried cooking them on a lower heat, but they turned into hard little frisbees that would pose a danger to dental work. I tried a flatter more piklety stlye, but that wasn't much better. In desperation I baked them in the oven. At first I was dubious, I couldn't see any little funnels, but before I threw them to the dog,I cut one in half. Perfection! There were my funnels ready to be filled with buttery goodness. I toasted one straight away and was impressed. I left the cut piece out overnight and toasted it this morning and was more impressed! I think drying it out overnight helped it crispen up. I used texas muffin pans which made a very cute little shape, but the emphasis is on little. I can fit 2 pieces side by side in my normal size toaster. I can't really say how many this mix will make, because I tried so many different ways before I got it right, that I only had enough batter left for 4 little babies, which I cut into 8. Not nearly enough for crumpety cravings. I guess I'll be making more this weekend!


Ingredients:

3 cups gfree flour
7g dried yeast
300ml lactose free milk or dairy alternative
500ml warm water
pinch of sugar

Mix the flour, yeast and sugar in a large bowl.

Add the warm water and milk. Mix well.

Cover and place in a warm spot for an hour for the yeast to do it's thing. Batter should double in size.

Grease some Texas muffin pans and half fill with batter. Don't knock out the airiness of the mix.

Bake at 180* for 20mins.

Turn out and let cool.

Cut in half and toast.

Slather with butter and honey and enjoy!

So Readers, what do you like to put on your crumpets?


P.S As promised I have my first giveaway! When I recently renewed a magazine subscription I received a lovely gift of a Junior Master Chef rice kit. Although I have my own junior master chef, I also have nearly every kitchen appliance known to man. All my nieces and nephews are too old or too young, so I have decided to re-gift it to one of you. (brand new in wrapper of course) To be eligible just comment on this post with the name of your little master chef that you will be re-gifting the re-gift to for Christmas.
Good luck!

25 comments:

  1. Now that my friend is IMPRESSIVE, but then again I really do know the lengths a girl has to go to get a crumpet fix. Mmm, that sorta sounded a bit risky didn't it..., but ya know what I mean right. Thanks for sharing this one Chef, because of you and all that batter going to the puppies, all in the name of science of course the Intolerant's now have crumpets. Awesome :)

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  2. My little one Amanda would LOVE that kit, thanks so much for this fun giveaway! =)

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  3. Oh. My . Goodness. You must have read my mind! I was only saying to Mr BBB the other day how much I missed crumpets! I must make a batch using your recipe sometime soon!

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  4. Cool! I didn't know it was so simple to make your own crumpets :) thanks for sharing

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  5. I can see you are a woman after my own heart with the generous amount of butter slathered on your crumpets!

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  6. How fabulous that you got your crumpet fix! Yaay! Pls don't enter me in the giveaway - like you, I'm not allowed to bring another thing into the kitchen! ;-)

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  7. My little master chef would love that. Musa he already makes popcorn and helps make salads.

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  8. GF crumpets?! Oh my. Now you are talking!
    Thanks for doing the experimenting on our behalf. What brand of gf flour do you use? Also, how do you think it would go without dairy (or dairy alternative - the thought of cooking with soy milk makes me shudder)?

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  9. Aww, the crumpets look so delicious.
    The junior chef kit would be great for someone with children :)

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  10. Your crumpets looks delicious! I totally agree with the many gluten and lactose free choices available now.

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  11. I can't make them work with ordinary flour so that you can do this gluten free is blinking brilliant!

    I like butter and marmite on my crumpets, or labneh and cherry jam, or cheese. I always toast them twice so they are really crunchy too.

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  12. Hello lovely Readers,

    I'm glad I could help out with my crumpety experiments. My german shepherd is always willing to help out in the name of science. Unless it's rice, he can't stand rice, does anyone know what that's about? This is the same dog who will eat raw potatoes and steal any veggies he can reach in the garden. Hmm...

    I generally use Basco gluten free flour as that's what I get in bulk for my cafe baking business, but to be honest I quite like the Whitewings mix that you can get at Coles and Woolies. I Know that I can mix my own, and sometimes do, but I wanted this blog to be easily accessable to everyone.

    I don't think using just water would be a problem in this mix Spiceandmore, I am not a fan of soy milk either, I use lactose free milk, as I don't have a problem with the milk protein. There are lots of other alternatives out there, but I haven't really had to explore them. Butter is luckily practically lactose free because there is no way I will eat margarine. I don't even beleive it's a food!

    I hope you have a lovely weekend, and getting all your Christmas shopping under control.

    Kisses xx

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  13. Crumpets!! I miss them too. My mum used to be a kinder teacher, and she used to make crumpets with her kids :) I loved your step-by-step. I'm itching to make some of my own. So homely!
    This is a great giveaway. My little poppet is my niece, Ella. She is so sweet. She lives in Hong Kong but is coming over for Christmas, and then we'll be in HK in February!

    Heidi xo

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  14. Those are some beautiful crumpets. They look so light and airy.

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  15. I don't think I have tried crumpets but definitely I like this name already - crumpets! crumpets! crumpets!

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  16. Oh bestill my beating heart! My hubby and I were just moaning about the breads that we miss and I was coming here for inspiration! Crumpets with lashings of butter and golden syrup or crumpets with butter and strawberry jam or crumpets with just butter!.

    Michelle

    P.S. My Masterchef is my boy Will, he is the one we've given up Gluten for and he will be 2 on December 30!

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  17. i love this! they look so good and moist:) i will make this soon.. thank you for sharing this with us. have a nice day.

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  18. ooo I'll pass this on to my gluten free friend for sure!

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  19. I would never have thought to cook in the oven - you are a genius! I like mine with just some butter, yum.

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  20. Crumpet recipe bookmarked!

    Was trying to find an email to respond to your comment on my macaron post but did not find any. I was not sure whether the comment was directed at me. I have been making macarons for over a decade and I teach workshops on making macarons everywhere in the country. So "tried" macarons is a word far behind me... :)

    If you want a pdf tutorial on macarons I wrote a couple years ago for Desserts Magazine, let me know. It seems to be helping a lot of people having success.

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  21. Hi Helene,
    I was more responding to all the comments on your post about peoples negative experiences. Sometimes poeple are intimidated by a recipe, but you can always try again, some of these people needed to be proud of just giving it a go. The pdf sounds great thanks, I can always do with a helping hand!

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  22. These crumpets look amazing! I have never made crumpets before but would love to give them a go, I'll have to make these for my MIL who is Gluten Intolerant.

    Thanks for sharing!

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  23. Read http://paidcritique.blogspot.com/2011/07/junior-masterchef-2010-isabella-bliss.html -a blog that is contributed to the grand champion of Junior MasterChef, Isabella Bliss. Congrats and Take care.

    Read the tips and suggestions about cooking.

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  24. this made 12 for me but maybe a bit large as i had to cook for 30 minutes. thankyou

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