The first rule of Fight Club states that you should never talk about Fight Club. With Crumpet Club I say GO FOR IT! Having been witness to some of the most amazing crumpet creations photographed on a Facebook crumpet club, I think the first rule here should be Share The Crumpet Love, as far and wide as possible!

Granted, they may not be the healthiest of foodstuffs but I think we can all agree that with limited and/or distorted taste, sometimes it’s important to find exactly what works for us, whether that’s via texture, butteriness, sweetness or yummy savoury. And crumpets certainly tick all of those boxes.

For those of you unfamiliar with crumpets, you’ll be interested to know that they’re similar to pancakes, and in fact, use a very similar batter recipe, minus the eggs and with the addition of yeast. In the UK though, it’s really easy to buy them in ready-made packets – my top advice here is to go for the branded ones rather than a supermarket’s own…

If you’d like to try your hand at making them yourselves, here are a few recipe suggestions to get you started:

• A marvellous recipe from The Spruce Eats for basic (surely never basic) crumpets on which to slather butter and/or the spread of your choice: https://www.thespruceeats.com/traditional-crumpet-recipe-435276 

• Or try this from Sugar Salt Magic which describes a simple recipe, listing the ingredients as flour, yeast, baking soda, sugar, salt and water: https://www.sugarsaltmagic.com/homemade-crumpets/ 
• And here we have Nigel Slater’s take on the humble (never truly humble in my opinion) crumpet, with a savoury and sweet option to satisfy all tastebuds: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/dec/28/christmas-crumpets-nigel-slater 

When it comes to the Crumpet Club, it’s all about what meals you can make using the crumpet as the carby base. So we might find a full English – eggs, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes – all piled high on two buttered crumpets. Or, and this was described as a “Taste Sensation” by its creator, you could layer honey, stilton and walnuts on your crumpets for a sweet and savoury lunch.

Surprise yourself – you may just find the dream combination!

Written by Ruth Sullivan