To Recipe Test: Popovers (Test #1 = Fail)

photo from Williams-Sonoma//link

I grew up in New England eating popovers or yorkshire pudding on New Year's day alongside a beautifully rare prime rib. My father mastered the whole meal and its a combination of flavors that really brings me home.

Saul abides by the Fannie Farmer popover recipe. I always associated her with New England style cooking, and that seems like a fair assessment, but apparently she was also one of the first to include real measurements in her recipes. And Saul's FF popovers were usually a hit!

To me, a perfect popover is crusty brown and practically air filled on top but any doughy substance that IS present is soft. Then, the bottom is bit denser and eggier, almost like sheets of velvety baked custard. Obviously, you eat it piping hot and obviously, you put several thousand pats of cold butter that mostly melt, but sometimes, you get a bit that has hot dripping butter with a little globule of cold salty butter sandwiched between the custard layers. OGMOGMGGMGMGGGGGGGGGGg.

So, of course, I know that Fannie Farmer works for my father. But, I need to try it for myself. And as I was searching for popover recipes to see how they differed, I noted a HUGE difference.


Fannie/Saul are pretty hellbent that the oven must be cold heated up and then the temperature is lowered.

William believes in a warm oven to begin with, but also turning the oven down part way through.

Ina believe in a hot pan and no temperature change.

If I know one thing about baking, it's that it's precise. And to me, these are some pretty big variations.

I'm going to test 'em out. First up Fannie Farmer's recipe:

2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tbsp melted butter
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt

from the fannie farmer cookbook. i love her gruffness: "forget what you've read elsewhere." well, fannie, NO! because mine sucked.

I made the milk and eggs room temperature. And just dumped everything together in a bowl and mixed. Half-fill buttered muffin pan or custard cups (I didn't butter the pans, oops). Put them in a cold oven and set heat at 450. Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and bake another 15-20 minutes.

these are stupid idiots.

FAIL! OMG, so bad! They are popunder, dense, lousy! I don't know what happened. I want to try the next time to mix the wet ingredients and then add the flour instead of dumping them all together. Then I'll try the other options.

After some research, I think I'm going to try Bob W., a rando from Food52, has so many rules. And I like them. They are all pretty different than what I did. My husband thinks our oven doesn't get hot enough quickly enough. I WANT THEM BETTER.