Popovers!

[Katie Meadow]

What Makes Perfect Popovers?

This morning I found this article on Sfgate and thought some people might find it useful or the recipes of some interest.

http://www.sfgate.com/recipes/article/Baker-s-quest-What-makes-perfect-popovers-4601293.php

For the record I tried this SF Chron recipe last summer when that article appeared. It is very eggy, and I prefer my popovers less so. I don't know if it would have been better with just 2 eggs instead of 3, but I didn't try it again.

[Shel_B]

What Makes Perfect Popovers?

http://www.sfgate.com/recipes/article/Baker-s-quest-What-makes-perfect-popovers-4601293.php

For the record I tried this SF Chron recipe last summer when that article appeared. It is very eggy, and I prefer my popovers less so. I don't know if it would have been better with just 2 eggs instead of 3, but I didn't try it again.

That's good to know - about the egginess - perhaps exchanging a whole egg for the whites might also help - just thinking aloud ...

[lochaven]

Thanks for the recipe Shel_B.

No big deal for me if the popover pan goes in the dishwasher. Mine goes in all the time and works fine after a good soak.

My motto is, if stuff can handle a 400 degree oven and if it can't handle an occasional dishwasher run -- then, out it goes. No big deal.

[dcarch]

Thanks for the recipe Shel_B.

No big deal for me if the popover pan goes in the dishwasher. Mine goes in all the time and works fine after a good soak.

My motto is, if stuff can handle a 400 degree oven and if it can't handle an occasional dishwasher run -- then, out it goes. No big deal.

It is not the temperature, and it is not the detergent which can damage the coating.

It is the possible of banging and abrasion from other items when agitated by high speed water jets which can scratch the non-stick surface.

dcarch

[Shel_B]

Flour Choice for Popovers: I've read that AP flour is fine for popovers, and I've also come across some recipes and articles that suggest using bread flour. What are your thoughts on the best choice for popovers if the desired result is good height and a degree of lightness.

Trader Joe's AP flour contains malted barley flour (or some such similar description). I don't know how much it contains. Could the addition of barley flour effect the results when used in popovers, and how so?

Thanks!

[heidih]

Trader Joe's AP flour contains malted barley flour (or some such similar description). I don't know how much it contains. Could the addition of barley flour effect the results when used in popovers, and how so?

I believe malted barley flour is a common ingredient in all purpose flours. With the purpose of promoting rise and browning it would seem to be a positive for your application. The diastatic malt powder is often added by bakers http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/diastatic-malt-powder-16-oz

[Shel_B]

I believe malted barley flour is a common ingredient in all purpose flours. With the purpose of promoting rise and browning it would seem to be a positive for your application. The diastatic malt powder is often added by bakers http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/diastatic-malt-powder-16-oz

I noticed the ingredient listed on a bag of KA four today. and figured it couldn't be too bad. KA flour seems to have a good reputation. Thanks for explaining what it does.

Edited January 9, 2014 by Shel_B (log)

[janeer]

You can make a popover in most anything. Here are some made in ceramic cups http://littlecomptonmornings.blogspot.com/2013/01/happy-new-yearthe-popping-of-champagne.html

[andiesenji]

I went with a friend to a restaurant in Costa Mesa a few years ago that served giant cheesy popovers that were baked in large coffee mugs.

And they were served right in the mugs. They were the same size mugs in which they served caffe lattes.

[Shel_B]

I went with a friend to a restaurant in Costa Mesa a few years ago that served giant cheesy popovers that were baked in large coffee mugs.

And they were served right in the mugs. They were the same size mugs in which they served caffe lattes.

I want to try making a small batch in mugs in the Breville oven. I can't fit my new popover pan in the small Breville, but the oven can certainly hold a couple-three coffee mugs.

Meanwhile, I used your recipe to make a batch this afternoon - in fact, they're still in the oven, got another ten minutes or so to go. My-O-My, they sure did rise high, popovers reaching up to the sky ... and it looks like they are going to turn out just fine. Unfortunately, filling the cups about half full allowed for only five popovers. No big deal, but a bit of a surprise. I can see the scenario for the next batch: more batter filling six of the pan's cups, plus extra to make in the Breville.

Mmmm ... the apartment smells so good right now.

Thanks for all your help with this project.

ETA: Oh, I should add that instead of regular butter or shortening, I used some homemade lavender-infused ghee, and the subtle flavor notes from the lavender add a nice quality to the lightness of the ppovers.

Edited January 14, 2014 by Shel_B (log)

[Shel_B]

Well, here's my first batch of popovers ... they sure did Pop! and they are very light and airy.

[Shel_B]

Popover Problems: Having had a chance to examine carefully my results, it's clear there were some problems with the popovers I made. First, I could only get five popovers from andiesenji's recipe, and that's a puzzlement to me. I filled the cups in the pan to between 1/2 and 2/3 the way full. Actually, the first cup I filled was about 2/3 the way full and the rest closer to half. Any thoughts on why I couldn't get six popovers from the recipe? Might the cups in my pan have had more capacity than those in andiesenji's pan?

Of bigger concern is how thin the popovers were. Of course the popovers were light and airy - they were completely hollow and the crust was very thin to the point where I could actually see through the crust on a couple of the popovers. There was a very thin layer of custardy innards which had a good texture and taste, but there wasn't much of it at all. My first thought was that I didn't use enough flour, having sifted the flour into the measuring cup. The next time I make these I'll add some more flour, perhaps two tablespoons more. Might that be a step towards correcting the problem?

Finally, two of the popovers actually had a small, circular hole in their bottom, big enough that I could insert the tip of my little finger into it. What's that all about?

ETA: I should mention that I used 1 cup low fat milk, 1 (sifted) cup of flour, 2 beaten eggs, 1.5 tsp salt, and 1 Tbs melted ghee, plus some vegetable oil to grease the cups. Preheated the pan before adding the batter, baked at 450°-F for about 15-minutes, reduced heat to 350°-F and continued baking until the popovers were nicely browned, about 20-minutes more, +/-

Any thoughts on what went wrong, suggestions on how to correct the problems? Thanks!

Edited January 15, 2014 by Shel_B (log)

[Ann_T]

I've always thought of popovers and Yorkshire puddings as basically the same. The only difference was the addition of a little melted butter to the batter for popovers.

If I want popovers for breakfast I just use the same recipe that I use for Yorkshire PUdding.

One cup flour, one cup milk, three eggs and salt.

8th of a inch of drippings or fat in the bottom of each cup, heated until smoking hot. Pour in the batter and bake about 25 minutes at 450°F.

[dcarch]

And this is what you'll get, using popover dough to make pizza. Not bad actually.

Interesting the dish shape happened naturally.

dcarch

[andiesenji]

Popover Problems: Having had a chance to examine carefully my results, it's clear there were some problems with the popovers I made. First, I could only get five popovers from andiesenji's recipe, and that's a puzzlement to me. I filled the cups in the pan to between 1/2 and 2/3 the way full. Actually, the first cup I filled was about 2/3 the way full and the rest closer to half. Any thoughts on why I couldn't get six popovers from the recipe? Might the cups in my pan have had more capacity than those in andiesenji's pan?

Of bigger concern is how thin the popovers were. Of course the popovers were light and airy - they were completely hollow and the crust was very thin to the point where I could actually see through the crust on a couple of the popovers. There was a very thin layer of custardy innards which had a good texture and taste, but there wasn't much of it at all. My first thought was that I didn't use enough flour, having sifted the flour into the measuring cup. The next time I make these I'll add some more flour, perhaps two tablespoons more. Might that be a step towards correcting the problem?

Finally, two of the popovers actually had a small, circular hole in their bottom, big enough that I could insert the tip of my little finger into it. What's that all about?

ETA: I should mention that I used 1 cup low fat milk, 1 (sifted) cup of flour, 2 beaten eggs, 1.5 tsp salt, and 1 Tbs melted ghee, plus some vegetable oil to grease the cups. Preheated the pan before adding the batter, baked at 450°-F for about 15-minutes, reduced heat to 350°-F and continued baking until the popovers were nicely browned, about 20-minutes more, +/-

Any thoughts on what went wrong, suggestions on how to correct the problems? Thanks!

Your popovers look lovely.

I can't give you a real answer until I try making a batch using your method. I've never had a problem getting 6 popovers - it's possible the pan I have has cups that are narrower at the bottom or I put a bit less in each cup. I but a bit in each cup and then go back and add more so there is an even amount of batter in each cup.

They do have thin walls with big holes inside - which is what I expect with popovers - especially when I want to fill them.

I can't explain the hole in the bottom - mine have a hole in the side where I perforate them to let the hot air escape.

[gfweb]

And this is what you'll get, using popover dough to make pizza. Not bad actually.

Interesting the dish shape happened naturally.

dcarch

So you poured the batter in a shallow bowl...cooked it a bit and then topped it ?

[dcarch]

I made popover dough, poured in a 14" frying pan and baked.

The flat dough started to "climb" the curved side of the pan as it was being baked and formed the interesting shape in the picture.

Then I put all the stuff on it and baked until the cheese melted.

dcarch

[Shel_B]

Rosemary-Olive Oil Popovers: I was wondering if extra virgin olive oil would be an acceptable replacement for butter (or shortening) as the fat to mix into the popover batter. I'd like to make a rosemary-olive oil infused popover. America's Test Kitchen, or maybe Cook's Illustrated, suggested that using full fat milk may inhibit the rise in their popovers because the milk was "too heavy" with fat. Might rosemary infused olive oil have that same effect?

Also, since popovers depend, at least in part, on steam (as I understand it) to give them their rise, would a higher fat butter, which has less water than a typical American supermarket butter, inhibit rising to some degree?

Thanks!

Edited January 21, 2014 by Shel_B (log)

[Shel_B]

I thought I'd bump this up and see if I can get an answer to the question:

Rosemary-Olive Oil Popovers: I was wondering if extra virgin olive oil would be an acceptable replacement for butter (or shortening) as the fat to mix into the popover batter. I'd like to make a rosemary-olive oil infused popover. America's Test Kitchen, or maybe Cook's Illustrated, suggested that using full fat milk may inhibit the rise in their popovers because the milk was "too heavy" with fat. Might rosemary infused olive oil have that same effect?

Also, since popovers depend, at least in part, on steam (as I understand it) to give them their rise, would a higher fat butter, which has less water than a typical American supermarket butter, inhibit rising to some degree?

Thanks!

Finally, since CI suggests that full-fat milk may inhibit rising, how might a non-fat milk work? Would it be an OK choice for popovers, or is some milk fat necessary to make the recipe(s) work? Since there's fat in the butter or shortening, it would seem that non-fat milk could work. Could the lack of milk fat in non-fat milk be somehow compensated by using a butter with a higher butterfat percentage?

[Shel_B]

How far in advance can I make a popover batter and store it in the fridge?  Can it keep for 16 to 24 hours?  I suppose it would need a couple of hours to come up to room temp before baking.

[Katie Meadow]

Popover batter takes 3 minutes to make, so why bother?

[Chefelle]

BLT Steak recipe, google it, works everytime. Because the gruyere popover is salty, a compound butter with a berry, sorghum , or honey is great!

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Last week Jeff tempted me and I did eat.

 

Sorry, left out part of the recipe...Jeff tempted me and I bought a popover pan:

USA Pans 6-Well Popover Pan

 

Now $9 more than what I paid on sale.

 

To my remembrance I'd not made popovers previously.  Dutch baby pancakes, creampuffs, Yorkshire pudding, yes.  But now I had a popover pan!  Naturally I read everything on the subject I could find.

 

The most interesting treatise was by KAF's PJ Hamel.

https://blog.kingarthurflour.com/2018/06/14/the-art-and-science-of-popovers/

 

I note her recipe calls for more egg than the popover recipe in the KAF Baking Book.  I like eggs.  A useful tip was to place a baking sheet on the highest oven shelf to shield the popover tops from becoming over browned.  Another tip was *not* to pierce the tops.  Hamel and I seem to favor the same popover texture.

 

Two changes I made to her procedure:  because these popovers were mainly for a savory application I omitted the butter from the batter.  Instead I partially filled the cups with ghee I'd used to deep fry schnitzel.  It wasn't clear whether Hamel preheats her pan.  I don't think so, but I preheated mine.

 

I was most pleased with the result:

https://forums.egullet.org/topic/156030-dinner-2018-part-1/?do=findComment&comment=2179052

 

(Please ignore steak, Hollandaise, and broccolini.)

 

 

 

Edited November 28, 2018 by Smithy
Adjusted Amazon link to be eG-friendly (log)

[Lisa Shock]

I would like to point out that, during the 1980's food writer, engineer, comedian (and so much more) Al Sicherman aka 'Uncle Al' did a huge series of experiments with popovers -in attempt to figure out why they didn't work many times.  His project and the results are chronicled in 'Caramel Knowledge' -IMO, one of the finest cookbooks ever written. The answer is the eggs. They must be super-fresh. This is borne out by more modern science, as an egg ages, the protein in the white starts to degrade. HERE is an image showing how the whites collapse and get runny over time. A fresh egg when cracked should stand up and take up very little space. If the whites run all over, it's too old -scramble it, feed it to the dog, whatever.

 

Eggs sold in supermarkets can be problematic. They are not hauled away from some farms daily, they travel, they get placed in storage then sit on a supermarket shelf for a week and in the end, they can wind up being a month old on the day you bring them home. This is one instance where farmer's market eggs, or your neighbor's eggs are clearly superior. With supermarket eggs, reach in the back of the case and get the ones with the best date on them.

 

Kenji Lopez-Alt has an exhaustive article on popovers and yorkshire puddings. He tests the lore surrounding popovers and shows images of the results. For me, one of the more important tips is to rest the batter for a while because it causes gluten development and gluten is an important part of the structure.

[gfweb]

On 2/14/2015 at 4:29 PM, Chefelle said:

BLT Steak recipe, google it, works everytime. Because the gruyere popover is salty, a compound butter with a berry, sorghum , or honey is great!

 

I have had this popover in some quantity and it is really good.