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

FAQs

What is the best flour to use for popovers? ›

Seeking Optimal Lift and Crispness

Not only were popovers made with bread flour about 30 percent taller than those made with all-purpose flour, but their higher walls were also thinner, making them a bit more crisp, and that crispness held up as they cooled. Bread flour was in. Next up: the milk.

The gluten in flour (and protein from the eggs) create the structure that traps steam in rising popovers. Without this structure, steam will escape like air from a punctured balloon, and your popovers will puddle, not pop.

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.

To make ahead: You can make the batter and refrigerate it for up to one day before baking. Just let the batter come to room temperature and whisk it well or whirl it in the blender for a few seconds before pouring it into the muffin tins. To store: Store baked and cooled popovers in a ziptop bag for up to a day.

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.

Plan Ahead: The batter will need to rest for at least 1 hour, up to 48 hours ahead. For the best flavor and texture let the batter rest for 24 hours. Always allow it to come to room temperature for an hour.

Basic popovers are made with eggs, milk, and flour. The batter is thin enough to be pourable, about as thick as heavy cream. The high proportion of liquid in the batter creates steam that causes the popovers to puff up like the popover pictured below. The conversion of the liquid in the batter to steam is dramatic.

How popover is triggered - click | hover | focus | manual. You may pass multiple triggers; separate them with a space. `manual` cannot be combined with any other trigger.

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.

What is an American popover? ›

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.

These tins are really only useful for making popovers, but oh, what beautiful popovers they make! Popover pans are distinguished from regular muffin tins by their deep, steep-sided wells. This forces the batter upwards and results in a popover with a puffy dome and crispy sides.

A popover pan should be greased. I prefer to use melted butter, but oil or nonstick spray would work too. Greasing the pan ensures that the finished popovers don't stick and promotes browning on the exterior of the popover. After you've greased your pan, place it into the oven while it preheats.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and continue baking for 15 minutes more, or until popovers are puffed and browned. Do not check popovers until they have baked for a total of 30 minutes. Remove from pan immediately and serve hot.

Remove from oven:

Popovers lose their crunch if they linger in the pan, so turn them out on a wire rack immediately and poke a small opening in the side of each with a paring knife to let the steam escape.

Rice flour and cornstarch work particularly well because they fry up crispier than wheat flour. They also absorb less moisture and fat during the frying process, making the products less greasy. This is why rice flour is often used when making tempura because it produces a very thin and crispy, dry crust.

Let batter rest for 15 minutes while you preheat the oven. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F and place rack in the bottom third position (to make room for tall popovers and to ensure the tops don't burn!) and another rack in the top position.

12-cup options usually make “mini” popovers, which aren't that different from results you'd get with a muffin tin. Material: In this list, we recommend popover tins made of aluminum, steel, carbon steel, and cast iron.