Better Than the Original

Just look at that! Fabulously light and fluffy with delicious flavor - you'd never guess that it's gluten free, but it is! For Christmas, I finally received a set of English muffin rings which allowed me to at long, long last try Bette Hagman's crumpet recipe from More from the Gluten Free Gourmet. The description describes the crumpet as worth the price of the book. And let me tell you, I'd pay a lot more than the list price ($20) for these little GF gems. I made just one little change to Bette's recipe, Bette promotes a GF flour mix with bean flour and, since I do not care for the taste of bean flour, I've used my own flour blend for this recipe: 1/2 cup sweet rice flour, 1/2 cup tapioca starch and 1/2 cup potato starch. These crumpets are wonderful warm with a little jam, used for a sandwich or, possibly my favorite use, the foundation for Eggs Benedict. Fun fact: did you know Eggs Benedict finds it's origins at the turn of the Century at Delmonico's in New York City. Mr. and Mrs. Benedict were regular customers and one day complained there was nothing new on the brunch menu. The chef whipped up a combination of buttered toast, poached eggs, ham and hollandaise sauce and the dish was born. At least according to Betty Crocker.


To create this scrumptious Eggs Benedict I used one crumpet sliced in half and toasted, topped with two slices of Canadian bacon, two poached eggs and a generous slathering of hollandaise. I also received Mastering the Art of French Cooking and tried Julia's recipe for hollandaise. My review: delicious, but too much work and too much butter for breakfast. I prefer Betty Crocker's version (I feel a little better about one stick of butter compared to Julia's two), you can find the recipe here. You'll have to purchase a copy of the Gluten Free Gourmet for the crumpets, Bette Hagman deserves every royalty she gets for those.

* In other news, I've begun my quest to master the art of gluten free French cooking with a couple naturally GF recipes, I'll post those soon!