Perfect Popover Recipe - With Tips! - That Skinny Chick Can Bake (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to good popovers? ›

The key to perfect popovers is using a popover pan. The cylindrical walls of popover cups are straight rather than angled like those in a regular muffin tin, accentuating their puffy, mushroomed tops by forcing the batter up out of the slim space.

Preheating your oven to the correct temperature is probably the most important thing you can do to ensure popover success. The hotter your oven, the higher your popovers will rise. Which makes sense: the faster liquid in the batter turns into steam, the more chance your popover has to expand before its crust sets.

Secondly, you must make sure to preheat your oven because the hotter the oven, the higher the popovers. The most important rule, however, is the consistency of the batter. To avoid your New England-style popovers becoming dense, your batter needs to be thin.

There's just one thing that will make the popovers better, and that's time. The batter needs time to rest before baking so that it creates a more tender popover in the end. So, cover the batter and pop it into the refrigerator for at least an hour, but preferably overnight.

The flour needs some time to absorb into the liquid, which not only thickens the batter a bit, it also allows the gluten molecules to relax which makes for a lighter, not chewy popover. The resting period also makes the batter more velvety and helps allow air bubbles to release.

Popovers are sneaky-simple; they LOOK like there's nothing to them, but oh, the side paths you can go down... Make the batter in a blender; make it with a whisk. Beat till smooth and frothy; leave some lumps. Everything should be at room temperature.

If your popovers lose volume when they come out of the oven, they are probably underbaked. When these airy baked goods aren't cooked enough, too much steam stays trapped inside. That moisture condenses once they're removed from the oven, causing them to collapse.

Remove from oven:

Popovers lose their crunch if they linger in the pan, so turn them out on a wire rack immediately and poke a small opening in the side of each with a paring knife to let the steam escape.

There can be a few different things that can mess up the rise of popovers. Preheat the oven to 425 with the pan preheating in the oven. When baking don't open it again until they're done. If you open the oven door the temperature inside can drop too quickly and the popovers will not rise properly.

Should popover pans be greased? ›

And be sure to grease not only the cups, but the surface around them as well. The popovers are going to balloon up and over the edges of the wells. Fill the cups about 2/3 to 3/4 full. Put the pan in the oven, on a lower rack.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Generously grease aluminum popover pans or Pyrex custard cups with softened butter. You'll need enough pans to make 12 popovers. Place the pans in the oven for exactly 2 minutes to preheat.

Too cold and you won't get the popovers to steam internally quickly enough. But be aware that you shouldn't make it too hot. If your milk and/or butter is hot enough to cook the eggs while mixing, the batter won't rise. Best to use all warm ingredients in the 40-50 degrees celsius (100-120 fahrenheit) range.

If your popover batter is excessively lumpy, you may want to strain it, pressing the batter through a sieve to remove lumps. However, if your batter is slightly lumpy, this is normal—much like making pancake batter.

Oh, the dilemma that so often stems from baking popovers — those hollowed rolls with a contrasting crunchy, flaky exterior and moist, eggy interior. They are the American relative to the British Yorkshire pudding, an evolution of the latter that disregards the use of beef drippings in the pan (and instead uses butter).

If you are having problems with popovers not popping, try decreasing your flour or adding an egg if you have already tried all the other tricks and you are sure that, like me, you are doing everything right.

An additional trick for keeping popovers crisp is to gently poke a hole in the side of each one with a sharp knife when you remove it from the pan to allow extra team to escape without deflating the crust dome.

Grease the cups of a nonstick (6-cup) popover pan very generously with softened butter or the cups of a cast-iron pan generously with vegetable shortening.