If there's a more end-of-the-roady breakfast food in the Alaska recipe canon than these sourdough crumpets, I don’t know what it is. But they probably weren’t originally called crumpets here, which makes them sound like something dainty that goes with clotted cream at a tea party. Most likely they were called hotcakes or griddle cakes, these quick-to-prepare, eggless, oil-less cousins of the sourdough pancakes most people make today.
Back in the Gold Rush days—more than 150 years ago— sourdough spread through the state of Alaska with mining exploration. It was a miraculous camp food, easy to carry and able to replicate itself with the addition of water and flour. Among prospectors—who, according to Alaska sourdough historian Ruth Allman, sometimes slept with a starter or kept containers in their shirt pockets to keep it from freezing—nobody was making multistep, natural yeast sourdough bread in ovens. They were making quick breads and cakes over a flame with water, and, if they were lucky, some sugar and salt. All that they needed to make the acidic starter react and double in size—thus feeding more people—was a little bit of baking soda or powder.
“Many legends have been handed down from the pioneer era of Alaska,” Allman wrote. “Somehow word got around that baking powder, like salt peter, was an anaphrodisiac.”
Her writing about sourdough and the “virility” of prospectors gets pretty off-color after that sentence, but it did cause me to contemplate how prospectors must have smelled back in those days, both lacking in baths and carrying sourdough in their pockets.
Anyway, crumpets are a delicious cross between an English muffin and a sourdough pancake. They can be eaten hot off the cast iron with butter and jam or reheated in a toaster. They are so easy to make, using sourdough discard or unfed starter, that my 12-year-old can whip them up, no problem. There is such a thing as a crumpet mold or ring that you can buy at a kitchen store or online, but I use the rings from wide-mouthed Mason jars, and they work just great.
First published in Edible Alaska Summer 2024.
Ingredients
- Neutral oil
- 1 cup unfed starter or sourdough discard
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- Cooking spray
- Butter
Preparation
Rub some oil on your cast iron and put it over medium-low heat to let it heat up.
Put your starter in a small bowl and stir in sugar, salt, and soda. It should bubble up and quickly double in size, growing to be about 3–3½ cups. Spray three Mason jar rings with cooking spray and set them in the pan for your crumpet molds, lip side down. Melt a small pat of butter in each. (You have to repeat this step for your next batch—greased molds are key.) Your cast iron should not get too hot—you’re looking for a heat you can hold your hand over for a few seconds without burning yourself, maybe 300–325° F.
Using a ¼ cup measure, pour the batter into the hot forms. Cook until many of the bubbles have popped and the batter looks like a tiny cratered moonscape with only a few raw spots. Using a stout spatula, flip mold and crumpet. Once it’s flipped, you should be able to easily remove the mold. If it sticks on the edge, you might need to coax it out gently with a butter knife. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes on the second side, until it’s golden.
Serve immediately with butter and jam.
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