Frugal: sourdough crumpet

It's frugal if you are growing a sourdough starter, otherwise probably not particularly!
I first made crumpets years ago, somewhere fairly near the beginning of my Diary of a Teacher blog, when it was a snow day and I was very, very bored.  They are fairly simple but, made the usual way, it is a long process from start to finish.

It is frugal though because one uses what would otherwise be thrown out - the 'discard', as they call it.  When you're growing a sourdough you have to keep taking some dough away and feeding the remainder to keep it alive.   They say to throw this discard away which does not sit easily on my conscience so I looked around for ways to use it and found this recipe.

Taken from the site above

It's a doddle.  I did quarter measures and it made one crumpet but I used a ring and mine was much thicker than those in the photograph.  Those just don't look quite right to my British eye.  The baking took the longest time of the whole process as you just have to wait until all the bubbles have risen and the top is cooked: of course, mine was thicker than the ones in the photo and that adds to the time as well.  I remember on Bake Off, when they were making crumpets in bread/dough week, one lady got impatient and turned up the heat, only to find that the bottom burnt!  Ooops.

Mine didn't < smug smile >!

The only problem I had was that the batter stuck to the side of the ring.  It shouldn't have done that as they are non stick but next time I will lightly grease the inside of the rings and that should sort that issue out.

It smelled lovely and the raggedy outside bits that I trimmed off tasted lovely too but, as the porridge was on and slowly cooking, I was very controlled and will freeze it for a future breakfast with a poached egg on top.  Poached egg on a toasted crumpet with a light sprinkling of sea salt crystals is a lovely, lovely thing, to quote John Torode.

Cost?  Well, I haven't the foggiest but as the sourdough starter would just be thrown away and the rest is tiny amounts I am giving it a nominal price of 3p per crumpet.