A crumpet () is a small griddle bread made from an unsweetened batter of water or milk, flour, and yeast, popular in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia. Crumpets are regionally known as pikelets, a name also applied to a thinner, more pancake-like griddle bread; a type of the latter is referred to as a crumpet in Scotland. History and etymology Crumpets have been variously described as originating in Wales or as part of the Anglo-Saxon diet, based on proposed etymologies of the word. In either case, breads were, historically, commonly cooked on a griddle wherever bread ovens were unavailable. The bara-planc, or griddle bread, baked on an iron plate over a fire, was part of the everyday diet in Wales until the 19th century. Small, oval pancakes baked in this manner were called picklets, a name used for the first recognisable crumpet-type recipe, published in 1769 by Elizabeth Raffald in The Experienced English Housekeeper. This name was derived from the Welsh or "pitchy [i.e., dark or sticky] bread", later shortened simply to . The early 17th century lexicographer Randle Cotgrave referred to "popelins, soft bread of fine flour, &c., fashioned like our Welsh barrapycleds". The word spread initially to the West Midlands of England, where it became anglicised as pikelet, and subsequently to Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and other areas of the north; crumpets are still referred to as pikelets in some areas. The word crumpet itself, of unclear origin, first appears in relatively modern times; it has been suggested as referring to a crumpled or curled-up cake, based on an isolated 14th century reference to a "crompid cake", and the Old English word ('crumpled') being used to gloss Latin , possibly a type of thin bread. Alternatively, crumpet may be related to the Welsh or , a type of pancake; Breton and Cornish for 'pancakes' are etymologically cognate with the Welsh. An etymology from the French language term , meaning "a paste of fine flour, slightly baked", has also been suggested. However, a correspondent to Manchester Notes and Queries, writing in 1883, claimed that the crampet, as it was locally then known, simply took its name from the metal ring or "cramp" used to retain the batter during cooking. The early crumpets were hard pancakes cooked on a griddle, rather than the soft and spongy crumpets of the Victorian era, which were made with yeast.