Lemon Cream Cheese, Harissa and Honey Crumpets

The perfect homemade weekend breakfast. Light, fluffy and full of flavour; you’ve never had crumpets like this.

Ingredients - makes 6

For the crumpet batter:

250ml Whole Milk

60ml Water

½ tbsp. Dried Yeast

¾ tsp. Caster Sugar

190g Strong White Bread Flour

¾ tsp. Bicarbonate of Soda

Vegetable oil, for frying

For the topping:

160g Cream Cheese

1 Lemon, zest

Pinch of Sea Salt

A few tbsp. of Harissa Paste

A few tsp. of Runny Honey

Method

Warm the milk and water until tepid. You don’t want this to be too hot or it will kill the yeast! Add in the dried yeast and sugar. Give it a stir together, cover and leave for 20 minutes. Add the strong flour and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl. Add in the milk mixture and whisk everything together until smooth. Cover with a tea towel and place somewhere warm for approx. 1 hour (or until very bubbly and slightly risen.)

Once your crumpet batter is ready; take three 9cm rings (I like to use tart or English muffin rings) and grease with some vegetable oil. Oil a large frying pan and place the rings inside. Heat the pan and rings over medium heat until hot. Ladle in some of the batter, until the rings are about halfway full. Cook the crumpets for around 5 minutes, until little bubbles form and pop on the surface. Once most of the bubbles have set and stopped popping, flip the crumpets over for another minute to toast. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool slightly before popping out of the rings. Continue until all the batter has been used up. Eat immediately, or they can be toasted later in the morning.

For the Lemon Harissa Crumpets:

Mix the cream cheese and lemon zest together. Take a warm crumpet or two and spoon over the lemon cream cheese. Make a well in the centre and spoon in a tsp. of Harissa before drizzling over some honey. Finish with a sprinkling of sea salt and some more lemon zest if you fancy!