All my life I have wondered what Popovers are. I had never seen one in real life, but had seen many photos of them and pictures of popover pans. My ex employer had plans to bring a popover pan back with her on one of her many trips to the US, but had never ever got around to it.
I spied this recipe for them on New England Today Food for Perfect Popovers the other day and once again my interest was piqued. I so wanted to try to make these rather elusive and delicious looking quick breads.
For the first time, I was told that I could use muffin tins, although they would not rise as high as they would in a popover tin . . . nobody had ever told me this before. Could I really do this?
Then I remembered these little individual aluminium pudding basins that I have for steaming individual puddings in and I thought to myself . . . I bet those would work wonderfully and much better than muffin tins! They are taller for a start!
And they did work wonderfully, with the only problem being that by the time that I filled each one half full, I only had enough batter to fill five of them. No worries . . .
There is nothing unsual at all about the batter . . . its pretty much the same as Yorkshire Pudding batter . . . eggs, flour, milk and a pinch of salt . . .
You dump it all into a bowl and then whisk it together until smooth. I put mine through a strainer as well just to make sure it was really smooth and there were no lumps.
I popped the pudding basins onto a baking sheet and put them into the oven while it was heating up to the proper temperature. These begin in a really hot oven. My oven doesn't actually go any higher than the temperature that was required for these.
By the time the oven had heated up my tins were perfectly heated and I took them out and popped a dab of butter into each one, which melted pretty much instantly. No surprise there.
I was then ready to fill the cups.
Because I had strained my batter into a large glass measuring cup this was very easy to do. No fuss no muss, but like I said I only had enough to fill five of my basins.
Once they have been in that incredibly hot oven for about 20 minutes, you turn the temperature down to a moderate heat . . . and then finish the bake time for another 15 to 20 minutes.
Hmmm . . . this sounded awfully familiar. This is the same thing that I do with my Yorkshire Pudding recipe. My Yorkshire Puddings are legendary. The recipe for them comes from my late Canadian FIL. He was a army cook and he knew his peas and carrots. They turn out perfect every single time.
I wasn't surprised when they came out of the oven. They looked exactly like Yorkshire puddings for the most part. They even tasted pretty much like Yorkshire Puddings as well.
There was some crispy little bits attached to the outsides, which I can only think are butter solids that got gilded golden brown . . .
These were wonderfully delicious. Light. Crisp. Airy. Golden brown on the outsides with a soft interior . . . perfect for spreading with butter and dropping in a dollop of your favourite jam.
Which is in my case, Wild Blueberry from Bonne Maman . . . and of course Danish Lurpak butter . . .
The main difference between these and Yorkshire Puddings is that for a Yorkshire pudding you will use beef dripping for the fat or suet . . . but with these popovers you use butter. Plain salted butter. These are perfect filled and spread with something sweet . . . and Yorkshire puddings are perfect for holding and cupping a beautiful rich and silky hot meat gravy. Po-tay-to . . . Po-tah-to.
Perfect Popovers
Yield: 6
Crisp and golden brown on the outside, tender on the inside, these light as air bakes are fabulous served with butter and a dollop of your favourite jam.
ingredients:
- 85g plain flour, sifted (2/3 cup)
- 160ml whole milk (2/3 cup)
- 3 large free range eggs
- 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
- 1 1/2 TBS butter cut into 6 thin slices
- Butter and jam for serving
instructions:
How to cook Perfect Popovers
- Preheat the oven to 230*C/450*F/ gas mark 7. Place a popover pan or 6 deep muffin cups into the oven to heat while the oven is heating and while you are mixing together the batter.
- Whisk together the flour, milk, eggs and salt until smooth.
- Remove the hot pan from the oven and place a slice of butter into each cup. It should pretty much melt right away. Fill the cups half full of the batter and pop the pan back into the oven.
- Bake for 20 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 180*C.350*F/ gas mark 4. Continue to bake for a further 15 to 20 minutes, until the popovers are puffed and golden brown.
- Serve warm with butter and jam.
This really was a most delicious experiment and as you can see my popovers rose incredibly high and were incredibly light and crisp. In short . . . yes . . . Perfect!
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