Crumpets

So I think I've mastered the simple loaf now. It has taken a lot of patience and several failed attempts but I've got there. So I decided to branch out and try something completely different- crumpets. Again using Paul Hollywood as my teacher, I followed this recipe:

450g plain flour
1tsp caster sugar
14g instant yeast
350ml skimmed milk
350ml cold water
1tsp salt
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Sunflower oil for cooking

-sift flour to a bowl and add sugar and yeast
-heat milk and water to just warm and beat into flour to make a batt
-cover bowl with cling film and leave at room temp for 2 hours
-beat in the salt and bicarbonate and leave for 10 mins

To cook, heat a griddle or frying pan to a medium heat. Wipe some oil over it and also inside a crumpet ring/rings. Stand the rings on the pan and pour in the batter to half full. Now I found they take a good 10 mins to start developing bubbles- you can't have the heat too high as they will burn whilst you wait. Remove the rings- I found this very annoying as the batter stuck to them. A very hard tap against the side of the pan was needed to free them. Flip over and cook for a couple of minutes.

These sound easier than they are. I only had 2 crumpet rings and the batch took me a couple of hours to cook on top of the prep time. Most went to waste due to the trial and error of heat/timing/sticking to edges etc and I was left with about 8 which eventually turned out very nice. But not nice enough for me to go to so much effort again. If anybody else has attempted this recipe I'd be eager to find out how they fared!