The taste is very mild, but that just means you have to add extra butter.
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[ED – Ellen in the future, 2025 – there really was an excellent post in popovers in the pampered pantry but it is 404 now. But I copied it below.]
Popovers are a most interesting quick bread: they don’t use either yeast or chemical leavenings to make them rise. Instead they rely on steam to form oversize, crispy breads that pop up three times their size hollowed out on the inside. To make all that steam, popover batter is light with lots of liquid and popovers are baked in a hot oven to create a burst of steam.There are two tricks to making popovers: make ‘em pop and don’t let them collapse. Everything else is easy. You make them pop with high heat to create steam and you make them rigid enough that they won’t collapse with proper baking, enough baking to make them rigid.
Here are the keys to great popovers:Use a high protein bread flour to make your popovers.Mix the batter well to develop the gluten; the gluten provides much of the strength to the shell.Use enough eggs; the proteins in the eggs provide strength to the shell when baked.Bake until the shell is crispy and nearly dry,When nearly baked, slash a slit in the side of each popover allow steam to escape and dry air into the popover to dry and cook the inside.Remove the popovers from the pan immediately so that they don’t sweat and soften.
Recipe
This is our basic popover recipe. These are delectable hot with butter and a gourmet jam. You should make and serve this often.
Ingredients
4 large eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup high protein bread flour (I just used regular bread flour)
butter
Directions
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.1. In a medium bowl and with a whisk or whisk attachment, beat the eggs, milk, and salt together.
2. Change to the paddle attachment. Beat in the flour until it is completely smooth. Continue mixing for several minutes to develop the gluten.
3. Use a pastry brush to grease the insides of the popover cups with butter. If you are using a muffin pan, grease every other cup. Place about a teaspoon of butter in the bottom of each cup.
4. Fill the cups two-thirds full. Bake at high heat for twenty minutes. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees and continue baking for 15 minutes. (Different ovens cool differently and may require different times.) Turn off the oven.
5. Open the oven door and quickly make a one-inch slit in the side of each popover to release the steam. Close the oven door and let stand in the oven for ten minutes or until the popovers are dry and firm enough to avoid collapsing.
6. Remove the popovers from the oven. Lift the popovers from the pan immediately by grasping the tops with an oven mitt. Let them cool slightly before serving.
17 responses to “These instructions do create perfect looking popovers.”
This makes me hack and cough a bit because that’s the recipe we use, in an identical popover pan we bought in the US, to make individual Yorkshire puddings to eat with roast beef and gravy. JAM? Augh!
(The puds originally served, I believe, in wedges cut from a big dish, before the meat, to fill stomachs and make the beef go further.)
Big dot – you surely realize what you are saying. The thought of “jam” on “pudding” – both are sweet. The idea of mixing pudding with roast beef is worthy of a hack and cough. I confess I don’t use jam or honey. When I have made ACTUAL Yorkshire pudding it was indeed in a pan over the drippings. Do you put the beef and gravy inside the cavity like you do with butter?
i swear it’s all about the pan. my father gave us a new one a few years ago that is the bestest ever.
https://www.nordicware.com/products/grand-popover-pan/?setCurrencyId=1&sku=51748&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21825624420&gbraid=0AAAAApl8TdRKERA9Mn1BI22KlUpLOU-47&gclid=Cj0KCQiAqeDMBhDcARIsAJEbU9TWlYFMiEVUOgPlNxDwJEyH_NhbNPXMvFtLbebNh7hcwk8WuJVNfRAaAn6DEALw_wcB
funnily enough, your ratios are what i use for a “david eyre’s pancake” made in a pool of butter in a cast iron skillet. for popovers, i use 2 eggs to the 1 cup of milk and 1 cup of flour.
Magpie – This recipe certainly isn’t the one mom and i used (we’d never heard of bread flour). the pan is from one Christmas when I got Mom a pan and she got me a different one. Neither of us have your pan. I have never had a david eyres pancake!
The tip about slashing the popovers is good. That would keep them from being gummy.
Thanks.
yummy!
Hattie – A slash and a twist of the knife. The first time I made this I slashed the sides randomly; this time I took care to make slashes that didn’t send steam directly to the next popover.
Mrs Hall – pretty, not so much yummy. It tasted a little like a Carrs water cracker.
Puddings don’t have to be sweet. Like pies. But I take your point – it’s just a matter of upbringing and your popovers will always be my Yorkshire puds and only to be eaten with roast beef and gravy (not stuffed – stabbed and gravy poured inside). Sounds as though your version wasn’t that great anyway…
Big dot- at first I thought, “what pies aren’t sweet?” But of course, there is spaghetti pie.
What? You don’t have meat pies there??? Steak and kidney, mince and cheese, chicken and leek, egg and bacon… STAPLE food here!
We have quiche, but that’s open-topped. Egg and bacon pie has a lid and is a picnic standard.
We have a huge range of individual meat-variety pies that are always ready-to-eat at service stations and corner shops.
Look: http://www.examiner.com/article/new-york-s-5-best-savory-pie-houses-no-1-the-pie-shop
Big Dot – Come to think of it we have chicken pot pie, which is a double crust chicken and PEA pie, so I hate it, and we call egg and bacon pie “quiche.” Does this mean you don’t have quiche?
Big Dot – hmm. I had a steak and kidney pie at a pub in London years ago. I wonder why the chicken pot pie is the only meat pie to have caught on in the states?
It’s a mystery. On the other hand, I learned about frito pies today, from the Bloggess, and that’s new to me. As well as appalling.
Big dot – interesting then that you just coasted past my reference to spaghetti pie with nary a blink
You’re right, I should have called you on that. What is it?
Big Dot – essentially it’s spaghetti with meat sauce, only it’s baked in a pie dish with the cooked spaghetti pasta making the crust. You know how pasta gets crusty when baked.