Popovers
The first time I ever heard the word “popover” was when I was in college. I was working at a department store (Herberger’s) in their gift department. The gift department not only consisted of the china, stemware, crystal but the bedding and kitchenware. This is where I saw my first popover pan and learned there was such a thing as a popover. I always wondered what a popover was but didn’t bother to find out.
Since then, I have seen popovers made on multiple baking shows. Enough to make us add them to our list. While many we have seen included different spices like pepper (Triple D) or cinnamon, we opted for a standard popover.
A popover pan looks like a tall muffin tin and they typically only have 6 cups. They are made out of heavyweight steel cups connected to one another with thick steel wire. The open design maximizes heat transfer which is crucial to high-rising popovers. (Yes, high rising is our goal.) Few companies manufacture popover pans and, apparently, most cookware stores carry only one: the Chicago Metallic 6-cup Popover Pan. I thought about purchasing a popover pan but decided that I didn’t want to get one if we didn’t like them. Our recipe had instructions for using a standard muffin tin so we decided that would suffice for our first time.
Our recipe came from our Cook’s Illustrated Baking Book. There were a few notes in the cookbook that I added at the end of the instructions. Our only substitution in this recipe was Splenda in place of the sugar.
Ingredients
- 3 large eggs
- 2 cups low-fat milk, heated to 110 degrees
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
- 2 cups bread flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon sugar
Directions
Before you Begin: Unlike most popover batters, this one is smooth, not lumpy. High heat is crucial to the speedy, high rise of the popovers. Popovers made in a 12-cup muffin tin won’t rise nearly as high as those made in a popover pan, but they can still be quite good.
- Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 450 degrees. Grease 6-cup popover pan with vegetable shortening, then dust lightly with flour. Whisk eggs in medium bowl until light and foamy. Slowly whisk in milk and melted butter until incorporated.
- Combine flour, salt, and sugar in large bowl. Whisk three-quarters of milk mixture into flour mixture until no lumps remain, then whisk in remaining milk mixture. Transfer batter to large measuring cup, cover with plastic, and let rest at room temperature for 1 hour. (Alternatively, batter can be refrigerated for 1 day. Bring to room temperature before proceeding with recipe.)
- Whisk batter to recombine, then pour into prepared popover pan (batter will not quite reach top of cups). Bake until just beginning to brown, about 20 minutes. Without opening oven door, decrease oven temperature to 300 degrees and continue to bake until popovers are golden brown all over, 35 to 40 minutes longer. Poke small hole in top of each popover with skewer and continue to bake until deep golden brown, about 10 minutes longer. Transfer popover pan to wire rack. Poke again with skewer and let cool for 2 minutes. Turn popovers out onto wire rack. Serve.
TO MAKE AHEAD: Once popovers have cooled completely, they can be stored at room temperature in zipper-lock bag for 2 days. To serve, adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Heat popovers on rimmed baking sheet until crisp and heated through, 5 to 8 minutes.
Other notes/quotes from the cookbook:
Build structure with bread flour: High-protein bread flour yields popovers with the highest rise and crispiest crust. The downside is that bread flour is so sturdy it sometimes sets up too quickly, which impedes rise. Resting the batter for an hour before baking gives the proteins in the flour time to relax and prevents the popovers from setting up too quickly.
Go low-fat for a higher rise: We had been using whole milk in our recipes as tradition dictated, but the fat was weighing down our popovers. Low-fat milk fixed the problem. A pinch of salt and sugar helps with flavor.
Give ’em a poke: Popovers will collapse like leaking tires as they cool, so we poke a hole in the top of the popovers toward the end of baking and then again once out of the oven. This slowly releases the steam and keeps the crisp structure intact.
Greasing the pans with shortening ensures the best release, but vegetable spray may be substituted; do not use butter. To gauge the progress without opening the oven door, use the oven light during baking. All purpose flour can be used in place of the bread flour but won’t create as much rise.
Baking Popovers in a Muffin Tin: If you don’t have a popover pan, you can bake the popovers in a nonstick 12-cup muffin tin–with a sacrifice in stature. To ensure even cooking, fill only the 10 outer cups to 1/4 inch from the top (you may have some batter left over). Reduce initial baking time in step 3 to 15 minutes, and reduce secondary baking time to 20 to 25 minutes after the oven temperature has been lowered. Poke popovers as directed and continue to bake for another 10 minutes.
Our Experience.
We assembled our ingredients and jumped right in…we didn’t even get our ingredients picture! Our first step was melting the butter because it needed to cool off a little bit. We then warmed the milk up in the microwave, testing the temperature frequently. As we got closer to 110 degrees, we put it into the microwave for shorter amounts of time. We heated it to about 115 because we knew it would cool off a little before we were ready to use it.
This was such a fast recipe, the “resting” and the baking took the longest. Mixing the liquids and then adding the dry ingredients took next to no time. This wasn’t one of those recipes that required the KitchenAid or even any extensive hand mixing to speak of.
Once it was all mixed, we covered it and left it on the counter and allowed those proteins to rest as directed. Note that we put our batter in a mixing bowl with a spout so we could pour it into the muffin tin easily.
I can’t remember if I ever mentioned my flour shaker in another post, so, bear with me if I have (my kids say it’s because I’m getting old 🙂 ). For years, I sprinkled flour with my hands on the counter to roll things out or on dough, or even to flour a baking pan. Earlier this year, I had an extra shaker that wasn’t being used and decided to put flour in it. Why didn’t I think of this earlier?? Probably one of my best ideas ever (I’m not saying I am the first to do it, just that I finally thought to do it.) That shaker makes it so much easier to get the right amount of flour wherever it is needed. I love it when I have to grease and flour a pan. It’s awesome when rolling out dough as well.
Once the batter had rested, it was as simple as pouring it in the muffin tin, leaving about 1/4″ at the top. Once it was in the oven, it was actually fun to watch the progress. We knew they were supposed to puff up and popover the pan so we left the light on and watched them.
in them to allow the steam out. They look a lot darker than they were; they were definitely NOT burned.
What we liked.
What can I say, these were the bomb!! Everybody LOVED them!! Aubrey had a couple bites, rolled her eyes a bit, and gave a “bro”! (As in OH, MY GOSH…THESE ARE GOOD.) Garrett couldn’t decide if they were better than the soft pretzels or if they were tied for the best thing we’ve made this year. Since we made them in muffin tins, we ended up getting 13 out of this recipe and they were gone in less than 24 hours. Don’t tell anyone, but I think I had 4 of them!! 😉
These were super crispy on the outside but have a squishy, doughy center that is (most likely) unique to a popover. It was a little like a croissant and a little like a cream puff, but totally different at the same time. These are crisp and chewy all at the same time and have a bread like flavor. Most of us ate ours with butter but they honestly didn’t need anything. I ate my 3rd and 4th ones with over easy eggs in the morning and they were delicious that way too. I reheated them in the microwave because I didn’t want to wait to “re-crisp” them in the oven. Fresh out of the oven is the best way to eat them, but I would eat them again even if they were only reheated in the microwave.
The best part about these is how relatively easy they are to make! These are going on the “make it again”, and again, and again list!! Popovers, who knew??
What we would change.
I can’t imagine anything that would make these better. Additional spices for different flavors? Maybe, but completely unnecessary. I could look for a whole wheat version but they may not lend themselves well to that type of flour. I’m OK with that.
What we learned.
As far as baking skills, not much new here. With these and the pretzels before them, we have discovered that even if it isn’t dessert, we love baked goods! We also learned that we do not need a special pan to make popovers. Which is good because I have enough specialty pans filling my cabinets already!
Until next week, Happy Baking!