I’m a bit stunned that a quarter of the year is gone and Easter is mere days away. My response to this freakishly quick passage of time is the same as my response to the scale on the infrequent occasions I bother to get on it – how the heck did it happen? But Easter it is and something Easter-themed to nibble on is called for.
Food should always be tasty, but sometimes it can be fun too. And that’s exactly what these hot cross crumpets are. (OK some call them flapjacks, but not in my house.) I took one of my favourite basic crumpet recipes from my gran’s dog-eared 1961 copy of Kook en Geniet. To it I added wonderful hot cross bun spices and finished it off with a chocolate cross. Drown them in butter and golden syrup and you have yourself a pretty decent Easter breakfast/teatime/anytime treat.
All you need is…
2 eggs
4 tbs sugar
1 cup milk
1 tbs melted butter
2 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp cocoa
Whisk together the eggs and sugar. Add half a cup of the milk and the melted butter to the eggs and stir through. Sift in the flour, baking powder, salt, mixed spice and cinnamon. Gradually add the remainder of the milk and stir/whisk lightly with a balloon whisk to incorporate everything.
Spoon out half a cup of the batter. Stir the cocoa into this half cup of batter along with one tablespoon of water to thin it a bit. Pour this chocolate batter into a squeeze-bottle. Drop spoonfuls of the spiced batter in a warm pan lightly coated with oil or butter. Once small holes appear in the surface of the crumpets, form a cross with the chocolate batter and immediately flip them to cook on the cross side as well. (If you draw the cross earlier, its edges will start to bleed and you won’t get as crisp a cross.) Serve warm with butter and golden syrup.
makes
15
prep
15 min
cook
30 min
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