Homemade Krimpets

I made homemade krimpets!! I love krimpets, they have a special place in my heart from a time in my life some years back. It’s a long story that I won’t get in to, but suffice it to say there was a time where they were very much my comfort snack of choice.

In case you aren’t familiar with krimpets, they are a small snack sponge cake made by Tastycake. They come in a few different varieties, but everyone knows butterscotch is the king.

Now, when lockdown first hit, I made sure to get a box of krimpets.. I greatly overestimated how long I would be able to ration out a single box. It was gone within a couple of days, and I haven’t found more since. So, I decided to try and make my own. What could be better than homemade krimpets?

The recipe I used came from the blog Good. Food. Stories. and in turn from the author, Casey Barber’s, book, Classic Snacks Made From Scratch, which I ended up getting after trying this recipe. This was the best homemade krimpets recipe I found.

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5 from 1 vote

Krimpets

Home made krimpets.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword butterscotch, cake, krimpet, tastycake

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes minutes

Total Time 40 minutes minutes

Servings 16 Krimpets

Ingredients

Cakes

• 1 1/4 cups All Purpose Flour
• 1/2 cup Granulated Sugar
• 1/2 cup Light Brown Sugar
• 2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/4 tsp Kosher Salt
• 1/4 cup Vegetable Oil
• 1/4 cup Cold Water
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 3 large Eggs Separated
• 1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar

Butterscotch Frosting

• 6 tbsp Unsalted Butter Room Temperature
• 1/2 cup Light Brown Sugar
• 1/3 cup Heavy Cream
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
• 2 cups Confectioner's Sugar

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spritz 2 canoe pans with nonstick baking spray.
• Whisk the flour, granulated and brown sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl until no lumps remain.
• Whisk the oil, water, vanilla, and egg yolks together in a separate bowl. Stir into the dry ingredients and set aside.
• With an electric hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites into stiff peaks on medium-high speed, adding the cream of tartar once the egg whites are frothy.
• Gently fold the egg whites into the batter, working slowly to incorporate them evenly.
• Pour the batter into the prepared canoe pans, filling each well only halfway.
• Bake for 18-20 minutes until the cakes are golden brown and a tester inserted into the center of a cake comes out clean.
• Cool the cakes for 10 minutes on a wire rack.
• Line the rack with waxed paper and lightly spritz the paper with more nonstick baking spray. 
• Carefully remove the cakes from the baking pans and cool completely on the waxed paper-lined rack.

Frosting

• First you make the butterscotch.. Melt 2 tablespoons butter over medium-low heat in a high-sided, heavy-bottomed pan at least 1 quart in volume.
• Add the brown sugar and stir occasionally with a silicone spatula or wooden spoon for about 2-3 minutes. The sugar will change from sandy and granular to shiny and light toffee in color as it cooks.
• Carefully stir in the cream—it will hiss and steam as it hits the hot sugar. 
• Continue to cook, stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes more. The butterscotch will thicken and the bubbles will become glossy and fluffy.
• Remove from the heat and carefully pour into a large bowl or the (clean) bowl of your stand mixer.
• At this point you have your butterscotch. Let it cool for 10-15 minutes. You want it lukewarm for the next steps.
• Stir in the vanilla extract and salt.
• With an electric hand mixer or the stand mixer paddle attachment, beat in the remaining 4 tablespoons butter, then the confectioner's sugar, until light and fluffy. Now you basically have butter(scotch) cream frosting.
• Flatten the cakes by slicing off the top where they rose, then frost.

The Cakes

Making the cakes was pretty straightforward. They were nice and fluffy thanks to the egg whites. The only problem I had was, I realized I didn’t really have an appropriate pan. The recipe calls for a canoe pan, which I think is really more twinkie than krimpet, but anyway, I don’t have one. I do have a mini loaf pan, so I went with that. I had a little extra batter, so I also made 2 muffin shaped cakes.

The Butterscotch Frosting

I was pretty happy with how the cakes came out, otehr than not exactly being the right shape. I put them on a rack to cool and went on to the more interesting part, making butterscotch. I’d never made butterscotch before, and frankly I didn’t even know what it was (although I knew the flavor obviously). Well it turns out it’s basically just brown sugar and butter.

As you can see in the photos from the fact stirring it left clean spots on the pan, it’s pretty viscous. Once the butterscotch was made I let it cool to about room temperature, and then incorporated it in to butt(scotch) cream to frost the cakes.

The Final Product

The frosting was very thick and if I had it to do over again (which I almost certainly will :)) I’d thin it out a bit to make it easier to spread. One of the trademark things, to me at least, of a krimpet is the super smooth sheet of frosting, which I definitely couldn’t get with this consistency. Still pretty happy with how they came out..

Despite not being perfect, they really hit the spot, and my wife loved them too. Didn’t have a chance to share them with anybody else because, you know, quarantine, but I’ll definitely make them again. I even plan to get a more appropriately shaped pan for them.

Enjoy one last bonus photo of one of my cats crashing my krimpet photo shoot.