Julia Child's Popovers A Classic Recipe Made Easy (2024)

FAQs

Why are my popovers not airy? ›

Preheating your oven to the correct temperature is probably the most important thing you can do to ensure popover success. The hotter your oven, the higher your popovers will rise. Which makes sense: the faster liquid in the batter turns into steam, the more chance your popover has to expand before its crust sets.

Yorkshire Pudding/ Popovers

Yorkshire Puddings are a staple in England with a Roast Dinner. Here in the US we know them as Popovers which are the same thing as the modern Yorkshire Pudding, except using a different pan.

Chef's Notes. The difference between popovers and Yorkshire puddings is that Yorkshires use the beef fat (the drippings from a beef roast). These popovers are a bit lighter in flavor and you can also prepare them before the roast is even done.

Check out the tips below to keep your popovers fresh. To make ahead: You can make the batter and refrigerate it for up to one day before baking.

My biggest tip for creating perfect popovers is to use warm milk and room-temperature eggs with absolutely no chill on them. Do not take the milk and eggs from the fridge and use them. Cold ingredients will give you dense popovers. Warm ingredients will give you light, airy, and perfect popovers.

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.

Popovers -- being traditionally an American invention in contrast to the French crepes and British Yorkshire pudding, which is again from essentially the same batter -- have traditionally been baked in heavy cast-iron pans. Popover pans look like muffin pans except that the cups are deeper.

Almost anything you like. You can make cheesy popovers and serve them with savory dishes, or plain popovers served with butter and jam. You can fill them with chicken salad, or serve them with a steaming bowl of soup, or alongside scrambled eggs or an omelette.

Which one to use? Tooltip: use tooltips to show a short text to respondents when they hover over a word or icon. Popover: use popovers to show a longer text, or when you want to have a link to an external web page. It is shown when the respondent clicks on a word or icon.

Gradually add the flour to the eggs & milk whisking constantly. Batter should be very runny and mostly smooth — think of the consistency of heavy cream. A few lumps are ok. Add melted butter and stir well.

Do you need a special pan for popovers? ›

You can buy special popover pans, with deeper, narrower cups which force the tops up in a more pronounced fashion, but I wouldn't bother. Any muffin pan will produce a perfect popover if the butter is hot, the batter is rich and smooth and the baker is patient.

History. The popover is an American version of Yorkshire pudding and similar batter puddings made in England since the 17th century, The oldest known reference to popovers dates to 1850. The first cookbook to print a recipe for popovers was in 1876.

How to make popovers. Before we get started: all of your ingredients should be at warm room temperature.

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.

If your popovers lose volume when they come out of the oven, they are probably underbaked. When these airy baked goods aren't cooked enough, too much steam stays trapped inside. That moisture condenses once they're removed from the oven, causing them to collapse.

There can be a few different things that can mess up the rise of popovers. Preheat the oven to 425 with the pan preheating in the oven. When baking don't open it again until they're done. If you open the oven door the temperature inside can drop too quickly and the popovers will not rise properly.

Secondly, you must make sure to preheat your oven because the hotter the oven, the higher the popovers. The most important rule, however, is the consistency of the batter. To avoid your New England-style popovers becoming dense, your batter needs to be thin.

If you add more flour, the batter will be heavier and the popovers won't rise quite as high. The lower the rise, the more dense the bread filling and the smaller the hollow center.

Use a good-quality bread flour that has a high protein content, as this will give your dough the structure it needs to rise and become light and fluffy. Make sure to use the right amount of yeast for your dough. Too much yeast will cause the dough to rise too quickly, resulting in a denser texture.