Everyone who keeps a starter ought to have a few sourdough discard recipes.

As we feed our starters every day, or perhaps even twice a day, plenty of leftovers start adding up and it may feel quite wasteful especially if we’re not making bread every day.

That is where a good discard recipe can come in and save us some waste. There are many ways to use up your leftover starter. You can check out the Sourdough page for more recipes.

If you have read this far and don’t know what a crumpet is, then this will be a treat for you! Crumpets are a classic British breakfast item. They are like a cross between bread and a pancake. Normally they have lots of little holes on the surface, but I like to make mine thicker and the holes do not appear that way. But on the other hand, there are plenty of little holes inside the crumpets. You can control this by pouring the batter thicker or thinner.

Cooked in a pan in pastry rings they keep their shape. But if you do not have rings, then you can simply make them the same way as thick pancakes. Or you could fashion some rings out of old tuna cans. I’m serious.

I have also made a regular crumpet video if you do not have a starter.

This recipe will make around 12 decently sized crumpets. Enough for 3 – 4 people, although I can demolish six on my own. If you want to make more simply multiply the amount of ingredients.

Watch the video down below for detailed instructions.

Ingredients

100g (3.5oz) sourdough starter. Mine is at 100% hydration.

40g (1.4oz) melted butter

4g (0.14oz) instant dry yeast or 4.8g (0.16oz) active dry yeast or 12g (0.4oz) fresh yeast

3g (0.1oz) salt

170g (6oz) white flour

50g (1.75oz) sugar

190g (6.7oz) warm milk

To learn more about dough temperature control click here.

Oil for cooking

Method

1. In a bowl combine the milk, salt, sugar, yeast, butter & sourdough starter. Mix to disperse the ingredients, hydrate the yeast and dissolve the sugar. Add the flour.
2. Whisk until smooth. This mix is relatively thick, so this will take a minute.
3. Cover & ferment for 1.5 – 2 hours or until puffed up and full of bubbles.

*My pastry rings are not non-stick, so I had to grease them beforehand and preheat them together with the pan to prevent the mix from sticking. You may not have to do this. Make sure you do not pour too much mix into the rings as the crumpets will take too long to cook and rise too high. I would not suggest any more than 2.5cm (1in) of batter.

4. Cook the crumpets on medium-low heat for around 6 minutes on one side. You will see them getting dry on the surface and that is a good indicator of them being ready to be flipped.
5. Remove the rings and carefully flip the crumpets. Cook for another 6 minutes.

*As with pancakes, it is always best to try out one or two to check if the temperature of the pan is right before going ahead and pouring a bunch. Cook one, check the inside to see if it is nicely done and then continue with the rest.

Enjoy whilst fresh!

Keep in mind that the conditions in each kitchen are different, so fermentation times may vary for you. It is up to the baker to control the bread and react accordingly.