Popovers

 25 December 2020

Recipe from Cook's Illustrated, January 2021

Christmas dinner was a beef rib roast. We like having Yorkshire pudding with this, but a simpler and very similar side dish is popovers. A new recipe came out from the Test Kitchen just in time for Christmas dinner.

Popovers are very easy to make. You can use popover pans and make 6 popovers or use a muffin tin and make 12. We don't have a popover pan so used our muffin tin. Bread flour and salt were whisked together in a large measuring cup. Low fat milk, which had been warmed to about 115°, was added with 3 eggs. The mixture was whisked until almost smooth. It was portioned into the muffin tin, which was easily done with the measuring cup, though I ended up with 11 instead of 12 popovers. These were baked at 400° then eaten warm with butter. Preparing the batter took about 15 minutes and start to finish the total time was about 45 minutes.

The popovers were good: a crisply shell surrounded the custardy interior of a mostly hollow pastry. These could be used as a substitute for dinner rolls and they can be made quickly using ingredients that are readily available in most kitchens. I had the leftovers for breakfast with butter and jam or honey. They were good this way, too, though they lost the crusty shell when reheated in the microwave oven.