The link you need to know is given in the explanatory words: Jones’ Crumpets. Now go there and make your life complete!
You are still here? Why? I have shown you the one and true way! Now go!!
Oh, all right, all right! Here goes:
Jones’ crumpets are the best crumpets on Earth. This is a bigger deal than you think.
Firstly, let us get something out of the way. When I use the word ‘crumpets’, I am not channelling whatever approximated as a scriptwriter for Carry On films. We are not talking about bits of skirt, or even the (more likely) ladies’ tuppences. No, get your mind out of the gutter!
We are talking about the famed English or Welsh small, round toasting bread, made with flour, yeast, and milk or water. They have a spongy texture with characteristic holes on the top surface.
That word ‘spongy’ might be making a lot of people projectile vomit at their screens as they read this. This is because the spongy texture of mass-produced crumpets in the UK is akin to that of the dead body just after it has got cold but before rigor mortis sets in. Mass produced crumpets are the last word in unremittingly putrescent foulness. Please, let us cast them from our minds.
Jones’ crumpets are gorgeous delights you can toast at any time of day, slather with butter and/or jam, and be transported to a world of warm bready wonder, a scene of strong flour seduction, a beautiful baking-powder beholding… You do not believe me? Look how good this one appears with a generous tribute adorning it!
The surface of a Jones’ crumpet is not semi-yielding dead flesh, they are firm and crispy, made only more toothsome by the couple of minute toast you give them on both sides. They are quite joyously crisp and yield only to a firm bite – an almost unparalleled penetration!
Why is bursting in such a deep and fundamental pleasure? The clues are the holes.
Those holes draw the butter et al. into the crumpet itself and, my, if you have only ever tasted something that the common man would claim is a crumpet, you have no idea of the beauty inside a Jones’ crumpet.
The inside of a Jones’ crumpet is formed using good helpings of yeast, baking powder and bicarbonate soda in the mix. Plus, during manufacture, there is a special touch that pretenders do not benefit from – the base of the formed crumpet dough is quickly fried in vegetable oil. Together, these facets of the Jones’ crumpet baking, result in the inside having a profoundly complex structure.
Not only does it look complex, but it also tastes like bonkers magic! All those little bubbles and rivulets fill with your liquified lashings; a topped Jones’ crumpet gets the good stuff right inside.
That is not the limit of the Jones’ crumpets’ cavities. As they are so complex with so many engorged globules, the centre of the toasted disk has a lively, exciting, animated, almost-god-damn–fizzy texture to it.
Add this to the flavours of strong flour, wildly exciting yeast and a hint of the most joyful, vivacious sourdough bread you could wish to eat, married to the taste of a hint of the toaster and shot skywards by a smattering of Maillard-reaction from the frying of the base. The result?
The climax of crisp! The top of toast!! The pinnacle of PAIN!!!
You can buy them in packages of five (see below for a picture) at various farmers’ markets across London or have a little ‘duelling pistol’ case of four packages delivered to you by post. They will freeze for up to three months. Make sure you defrost them before you toast!
All details on the Jones’ Crumpets’ website.
Many thanks to Jonathan and Amy for the birthday present.
So glad you enjoyed them!