Popovers

Popovers are ludicrously easy to make (though the cleanup afterwards can be a mild pain sometimes). I have deep, fond memories of the popovers of my youth. I’ve eaten them with strawberry preserves and butter with an accompanying lobster bisque while sitting by Jordan Pond in Maine.  Everyone should have popovers in their lives — the crispy fluffy eggy buttery goodness of them.  Today, I share the recipe with you. They are this easy. Make them. Better yet, make them for people you love; they’ll know how you feel.

Gigantic Popovers

The Hardware

In Chez Hicks we have a popover pan from Williams Sonoma, but the popovers of my youth were made with a cookie sheet and 6 glass custard cups. Take your pick.  I’m using my Mom’s recipe here, so it’ll proceed on the assumption of the custard cup approach.

The Software

The Lubricant

• 4 teaspoons of shortening (though we use ghee for the job — adds to the butteryness and avoids any “shortening taste” that might emerge, but thanks to being clarified butter behaves more like shortening with regards to the whole not-burning thing)

The Dry Stuff

• 1 cup of sifted flour
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt

The Wet Stuff

• 1 cup of milk
• 2 eggs

The Process

1. Heat oven to 425 degrees F.

2. Grease 6 custard cups (or 8 if you’re doing medium-sized popovers instead of big’uns) using a little additional shortening/ghee. Divide the 4 teaspoons of shortening/ghee mostly even-sized globs and drop one into each of the cups.

3. Put the cups on a cookie sheet (or jelly-roll pan) — you can skip the cookie sheet if you have a pre-built popover pan — and heat in oven 5-10 minutes.

4. While the shortening and cups are melting/heating in the oven, sift the Dry Stuff into a bowl.

5. Add wet ingredients and beat just until smooth (don’t overmix).

6. Remove the pan-with-cups from the oven.  Watching your fingers and avoiding splatter, pour about a third of a cup (or a quarter cup if using the 8 cup approach) of the batter into each cup — this should just about half-fill each receptacle.

7. Put back in the oven and bake at 425 degrees F for 25 minutes.

The Result

What comes out the other side of this should be brown and golden and freaking delicious.

When you remove them, I recommend twisting each out of the cup (it should slide free with little force if the cup greasing was done well) and then gouging each one with a knife to let the steam out. If you don’t let the steam out, they tend to deflate and lose some of the outer crisp and inner fluffiness.

I like mine with butter and strawberry preserves that I get from the farm up the road.