On the Plate: Wintery, toasty times – a call to all crumpets

Nuffin like a bit o’crumpet, eh? Yes indeedy, and this time, you can make your own!

During COVID lockdown, it seems to me that mastering the art of baking the perfect sourdough loaf became a popular diversion to the realities of being housebound.
Not in my household. I went for the crumpets, big time! The first of these are not really crumpets – they are in fact the Moroccan version of a yeast pancake – and they are scrumptious! So I hope you will indulge me as I revisit Marrakesh for a moment – I’ll take you back to the medina. Join me in the hushed and sumptuous surrounds of the riad where I spent a whole day learning to cook beautiful Berber and Moroccan recipes, this was one of them. I hadn’t actually eaten any of these lacy crumpets, but I’d seen them for sale in the medinas – the tiny shop front of the baker had a range of breads available, and these bourjeje (or beghrir, or in my phonetic spelling, brou-riaa?) were a feature of the display. The bourjeje were huge, about 50cm in diameter! The customer would indicate how much they wanted, a piece was torn off, weighed, wrapped in paper and money exchanged. Whilst in the cooking ‘class’, well actually, it was just me, the solo student, and Sian, my teacher, demonstrated how easy they are to make.
Back home in my own kitchen I have had mixed results, and can only attribute this to the variations that are ‘expected’ to occur when making any bread-like product – the type of flour, the yeast, the temperature will all impact on the result. So my bourjeje were not as lacy as the ones we made together, but once they are doused with butter and honey, hey, what’s not to like?
Julie Le Clerc’s recipe (from Made in Morocco) includes an egg in the mix, and most of my research seems to have an egg – but here’s my list of ingredients, and method as dictated by Sian. At the cooking class, I was given a delightful, small, suede-covered notebook to take down all the recipes we covered in a full day of cooking. This recipe is a delightful “all in the blender” recipe, and you can use the batter straight away, although allowing it to stand for half an hour for the yeast to bubble and froth does make for a more “airy, lacy” crumpet-like texture.
This recipe will make approximately 16 crumpets – it can be halved – and as fresh yeast is not always so easy to obtain, I used 2 tbsp dried yeast instead of the fresh variety.
In the riad we scoffed them down as an afternoon snack – by heating some butter and honey in the pan, and gently coating the “brou-riaa” – as I called them in my halting Berber accent – in the pan, warming them through and enjoying them of course with Berber ‘whiskey’ – ie mint tea! In Morocco, the bourjeje are a breakfast staple, and on these wintery mornings it is just a little bit of Moroccan-crumpet-warmth to start your day!