How To Make the Best Popover Recipe - Through Her Looking Glass (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to good popovers? ›

The key to perfect popovers is using a popover pan. The cylindrical walls of popover cups are straight rather than angled like those in a regular muffin tin, accentuating their puffy, mushroomed tops by forcing the batter up out of the slim space.

Too cold and you won't get the popovers to steam internally quickly enough. But be aware that you shouldn't make it too hot. If your milk and/or butter is hot enough to cook the eggs while mixing, the batter won't rise. Best to use all warm ingredients in the 40-50 degrees celsius (100-120 fahrenheit) range.

King Arthur Baking says that there are a few ways your popover could go wrong. First, you must use all-purpose flour because it has a solid gluten structure to capture all the steam. Secondly, you must make sure to preheat your oven because the hotter the oven, the higher the popovers.

What makes popovers pop? Unlike cake or bread, popovers use neither baking powder/baking soda nor yeast to provide leavening. Steam is the engine that makes them rise — and rise, and rise!

We also let the batter rest for 25 minutes to give the flour time to fully hydrate. Next, we skipped nonstick pans. To get the best rise, the batter would need to grip the sides of the cups; nonstick would be too slippery.

Popovers are sneaky-simple; they LOOK like there's nothing to them, but oh, the side paths you can go down... Make the batter in a blender; make it with a whisk. Beat till smooth and frothy; leave some lumps. Everything should be at room temperature.

If you try to use cold ingredients, the popovers won't “pop” right and will be dense and heavy, instead of airy and majestic. Since the dish calls for only five ingredients – eggs, milk, butter, flour and salt - it's pretty simple to get them to room temperature with a little forethought.

Grease the cups of a nonstick (6-cup) popover pan very generously with softened butter or the cups of a cast-iron pan generously with vegetable shortening.

Oh, the dilemma that so often stems from baking popovers — those hollowed rolls with a contrasting crunchy, flaky exterior and moist, eggy interior. They are the American relative to the British Yorkshire pudding, an evolution of the latter that disregards the use of beef drippings in the pan (and instead uses butter).

Why are my popovers dense? Dense popovers (either from not rising or not getting nice hollows inside) can result from a couple things but usually it is by either not starting with room temperature eggs and milk, not preheating the popover pan, not using a quality popover tin, and/or making too thick of a batter.

How do you know when a popover is done? ›

Finished popovers will be golden-brown, feel dry to the touch, and sound hollow when tapped. Prick with a Knife, Cool, and Eat!: Turn the popovers out onto a drying rack. Pierce the bottoms with a knife to allow steam to escape.

As soon as you remove the popovers from the oven, poke a little hole in the top of each one. This will give the steam someplace to escape while cooling. If you don't do this the steam stays trapped inside making them soft which causes them to deflate. Also, don't cover them while they cool for the same reason.

According to The Kitchn, popovers are airy and fluffy in nature—boasting a golden brown exterior like Yorkshire pudding. In fact, this pastry is made with a similar batter of flour, salt, eggs, milk, and butter. Another fun fact—a popover gets its name from the “dramatic rise” caused by the steam.

Why do popover batters contain so much liquid? It allows the popovers to be leavened with steam, creating the characteristic large cavity in the center. It also allows gelatinization of the starch during baking, which is indicated in part by the soft, gel-like texture in the inside walls of a baked popover.

Cooking fat: Yorkshire pudding is a dripping pudding, meaning that chefs traditionally make it using the meat drippings leftover from cooking a Sunday roast dinner. Meanwhile, popover recipes tend to call for butter instead. Yorkshire pudding batter, therefore, takes on a more savory flavor than popover batter.

An additional trick for keeping popovers crisp is to gently poke a hole in the side of each one with a sharp knife when you remove it from the pan to allow extra team to escape without deflating the crust dome.