I used this version from Simply Recipes. It has all the requisite ingredients: flour, eggs, milk, roast drippings, a bit of butter, and a dash of salt I added a pinch of thyme, too. I was careful not to use too much butter, since the drippings already add plenty of fat, and too much fat can inhibit the formation of that all-important gluten network, making for a denser, less puffy texture. Was it the flour? Many a baker has run aground even with very familiar recipes if they happen to use a low-protein flour by accident.
In addition to starch, flour contains two key proteins, glutenin and gliadin, and when you add liquid — milk sometimes cut with water and eggs in the case of Yorkshire pudding — they combine into gluten.
But this seems an unlikely explanation for my failure, since labeling aside I used the same flour I had just used a month before to make perfectly turned out popovers for dinner guests.
Was it the pan? Yeah, sure, Mr. I could have used my special popover tin to make individual puddings, but I was keen to make the traditional one-dish version as an experiment. Back when I was earning my wage as a cook at a co-ed fraternity house, I received a special dinner request from a few exchange students from Cambridge University: toad-in-the-hole, the classic British dish of sausages baked into a large Yorkshire pudding.
Only problem? I had no idea what a Yorkshire pudding was. It was described to me as "sort of like a batter and you pour it into a pan and you bake it. Pudding , I thought to myself. That ought to be rich and moist and sort of spoonable like a custard, right? I ended up with essentially that: sausages baked into a vast pool of eggy custard, their tops just poking through the surface, like a construction worker who's fallen into a vat of half-set concrete. And the dish was just as heavy as it looked.
The one good thing about cooking for a fraternity house is that college students will eat anything. Still, at the behest of the British students, I dove a little deeper and discovered that Yorkshire pudding is really nothing more than the British equivalent of the popovers that my mother loves.
Sure, our popovers are baked in specialized tins and typically served sweet while Yorkshire puddings are served with beef drippings and gravy, but conceptually, they're pretty much exactly the same. This was well over a decade ago and I've spent several months in northern England as well as many hours in the kitchen baking pudding after pudding since then. Printed recipes for Yorkshire pudding go back as far as the midth century, and the dish likely existed long before that.
It's simple—almost primal—in its ingredients and process: Mix together milk, eggs, and flour with a pinch of salt to form a batter "as for pancakes," according to the cookbook The Whole Duty of a Woman , then pour the batter in a pan that has been greased with the drippings from a roast.
Originally, that roast was mutton; these days, it's more likely beef. Those recipes all start with a high-moisture dough and rely on the power of steam to puff and rise into their light, crisp final forms. Yorkshire puddings and popovers take the same concept to the extreme, using a batter that is so moist that it pours out like cream and puffs up to at least quadruple its volume.
As with all simple recipes, Yorkshire pudding technique is steeped in rules designed to make you believe it's a tricky, fickle food and that following the wrong recipe or wrong technique will lead to disastrous results.
After dozens of tests and hundreds of puddings, I have some good news for you: It's nearly impossible to mess up a Yorkshire pudding despite the fact that I managed to back in my fraternity chef days. You can play with the ratio of ingredients every which way and still end up with a batter that rises tall. You can bake it in any type of pan you'd like. You can rest the batter or bake it fresh.
You can chill it or leave it out at room temperature. Heck, you can even break the cardinal rule of Yorkshire puddings and pour the batter directly into a cold tin. Break every one of these rules and your puddings will still puff and turn out light and crisp.
But of course, some puddings are lighter and crisper than others. I considered it my duty to investigate each and every rule and theory in the lore of Yorkshire pudding to figure out which ones rise to the top and which are simply puff pieces. Before we dive in, a quick shout out to Felicity Cloake's fantastic article on Yorkshire puddings , where, in the true intrepid spirit of an adventurous scientist, she tested a half dozen different recipes before landing on her own version.
Her columns are always enlightening and this article hopes to pick up where hers left off. I've heard this one over and over. Make sure your batter is chilled in the fridge and that your pan with drippings is ripping hot from the oven.
But there is debate. The Royal Society of Chemistry rather imperiously advises against it, claiming that to place pudding batter in the refrigerator is a "foolish act. However, most recipes, like James Martin's , tell you to chill your batter before baking.
This was a very easy one to test. I divided batches of batter in half, storing half in the refrigerator for an hour and the other half at room temperature.
I also repeated the experiment with batter I'd refrigerated in its entirety for an hour, then divided, leaving half of it on the counter to come to room temperature before baking. I baked all the puddings in the same tin repeating the test multiple times, of course and compared heights and textures. The difference wasn't as drastic as some other tests, but the fact is that the warmer your batter is to start, the better your puddings will rise. However, there is another thing to consider: Colder batter stayed pooled in the center as the edges rose from the heat of the pan, weighing down the center and creating a more distinct cup shape to the finished puddings.
Verdict : Depends on what you want. Warmer batter will create taller, crisper puddings with a more hollow core I kind of like them this way , but colder batter will create denser puddings with a more distinct cup. If you are the type who likes to make a separate onion gravy to pour inside the puddings as a first course, colder batter might be for you.
The idea of starting in a screaming hot pan makes sense for a couple of reasons. First, there's the idea of oven spring. A hot pan will get more energy into the batter right from the start, causing it to puff and rise while it's still relaxed and stretchable.
Second is that with a hot pan, your batter is less likely to stick think: pouring scrambled eggs into a cold pan vs. There's no divide on this debate: everybody says you must start with a hot pan in order to get the tallest rise, some going so far as to tell you to preheat your beef drippings for a full half hour before adding your batter.
I poured cold batter into a cold, greased tin, then placed it in the oven. It must be smoking hot before you pour in the pudding mixture, and the batter should sizzle when you drop an oil into the fat. Don't Open the Oven Door Avoid opening the oven door during cooking because the cooler air will make the puddings collapse. Sometimes they make a recovery but will never rise quite as high as they should. We know its unlikely, but if you manage not to scoff all these delicious crispy yorkshire puddings in one sitting, they will keep in the fridge perfectly well for a couple of days, just heat them back up in the oven.
The microwave will make them go soggy so not half as nice as they should be. They also freeze well. It must be plain flour no baking powder. Yorkshire puddings rise due to quick cooking of the flour and steam being formed in the batter mixture, hence the requirement of a very hot oven and hot oil as you pour the batter into the yorkshire pudding tin. Should Yorkshire pudding batter be thick or runny?
Gradually work in the beaten eggs, then whisk in the milk — the consistency should be like single cream. Leave the batter to stand for at least an hour. You'll need some Yorkshire pudding tins, either individual ones or one big tin. Should Yorkshire pudding batter rest in the fridge? However, most recipes, like James Martin's, tell you to chill your batter before baking.
Will baking powder help Yorkshire puddings rise? Thoroughly beat the batter so it's totally free of lumps. If you're not sure the batter is smooth enough, strain it through a sieve before cooking. To help puddings rise, let the batter sit for a minimum of 30 minutes—longer if possible up to several hours is ideal. You can cook the puddings right away, but there is a chance they will not be as big as they should be.
The fats need to reach a high temperature so only use lard, beef drippings, or vegetable oil in the tins and heat in the oven until the fat is smoking. Never use olive oil or butter—these two fats will not reach a high enough temperature without burning. After the batter has rested, give it another good whisk to ensure there are no lumps. Add 2 tablespoons of cold water to help cool down the mixture before pouring it into the smoking hot fat.
If you plan to clean your pudding tins before using them, never wash them with soap and water. This spoils the surface of the tins and can cause the batter to stick and thus prevent puddings from rising. Just wipe the tins clean with a paper towel before and after use. Filling the tins with batter a third to half full is usually sufficient.
If you use too much batter, the puddings will begin to rise but then soon collapse because of the weight. A successful rise will come from the combination of a cold batter going into a very hot oven. The oven should be as hot as possible—the highest setting your oven can handle F to F without burning everything to a crisp.
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