Suddenly I am reminded of the Dutch practice of taking spaetzle cookies, frosting them with butter or chocolate spread, and then sprinkling on jimmies. I don't think they eat this for breakfast, but it makes a hell of a snack.

jimi's links to things make it clearer. (US) English muffins are baked on both sides -- flipped some time during baking -- so that the butter-holes are only in the middle, as with unevenly-risen bread. So you have to cut them in half to open up the holes. Whereas it looks like UK crumpets have the holes directly on top. I couldn't tell by looking whether the UK muffin was just a pre-fab version of the crumpet, or something closer to the US English muffin. Certainly, nothing like a US regular muffin.

To confuse things further, crumpets rather remind me of pancakes, if pancakes were made in rings. Although pancakes fall closer to cake on the consistency scale than to bread.

(You will be pleased to know that there's really only one brand of "English muffins", so it's not like we have a vast market of fake-UK muffins. Except, as you can see, real-UK muffins, and crumpets, are relatively unknown, in the grocery store anyway.)

No, it sounds to me like your "English muffins" are in fact English muffins. (I think the confusion arose because someone described them as having "holes", which real English muffins sort of do, but not the ostentatious kind that crumpets have, which seem to be able to absorb as much butter as you care to plop on top of them.)

The consistency of crumpets is nothing like bread, and in fact is probably closer to pancakes, but they're really not like anything else--as Emlah said, they're rubbery, but in a good way. My toaster has a special setting for crumpets! (They're best if the side with the holes gets more heat than the side without.)

English muffins are baked on both sides -- flipped some time during baking -- so that the butter-holes are only in the middle, as with unevenly-risen bread. So you have to cut them in half to open up the holes.

This is where I'm getting confused, because in my experience English muffins don't have holes at all. When you cut them in half, the cut bit just looks like bread. It might be a bit craggy if you rip them in half instead of using a knife, but no holes as such.

Thanks to this thread, I bought crumpets this evening and I'm eating some right now with an utterly ridiculous amount of margarine on them. I'd forgotten how damn good these things are.

I wasn't sure if that was spelled 'margerine' or 'margarine' so I went to check the container of Meadow Lea in the fridge and, oddly, the word margarine does not appear on it anywhere. I had to hunt around for my dictionary instead. Is this one of those things where margarine is actually a specific brand name that gets used as an all-purpose term for the product, like Band Aid? Or is Meadow Lea just trying to be all fancy shmancy, calling it 'canola spread'?

ETA: I keep thinking of Lorne during this discussion. What with that baked goods nickname thing he's got going. Speaking of Lorne, does anyone else find him really sexy in the Angel final when he dances briefly with Fred right near the end? He's one of my favourite ME characters ever, but that's the first time I've had the lusty wrong thoughts about him.

I'd have to disagree with you there, Emlah, muffins are a bit holier that bread (but with the same kind of holes), it's just that they don't have the big honking Platonic-essence-of-hole holes that crumpets do, which might make us Brits and Aussies think they don't have holes at all, because we're used to real holes, if you see my point.

Ah, if people are going to discuss the Angel finale I need to unsubscribe! Through no-one's fault but my own I haven't seen it yet...(and won't until Tuesday).

You're on the right track guys. English muffins are a type of bread roll that is dry-fried on a griddle rather than baked, almost scone-like in texture but not sweet. American muffins are more like small cakes containing butter/marg, sugar, eggs, fruit, yoghurt/dairy, and self-raising flour. The big difference between english muffins and crumpets is the bi-carb in the mix which is what creates the air bubbles/holes. Nutty was close with the pancake bit as the action of the bi-carb is similar to the air bubbles in pancakes/pikelets. It is also bi-carb that causes the bubbles/holes in honeycomb, just add bi-carb to toffee and bingo, honeycomb.

Cutting English muffins (at least the American ones) with a knife is a no-no. You need to split them with a fork, then you'll ge the nooks and crannies.

To confuse things further, crumpets rather remind me of pancakes, if pancakes were made in rings.

this is confusing since the crumpets I know and love don't have holes in the middle.

To confuse things further, crumpets rather remind me of pancakes, if pancakes were made in rings.

this is confusing since the crumpets I know and love don't have holes in the middle.

Crumpets are cooked on a griddle by pouring batter into a metal ring. That's the ring. The crumpet itself is not ring-shaped.

Ah, thank you David. I was so confused, because you can see the holes in the crumpets right on the page Megan linked. The other kind of "hole in the middle" didn't even occur to me.

I should remember not to post so early in the morning. I was confuse-ed. Thanks for clearing that up.