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Huge Yorkshire Puddings

Huge Popovers!

Yorkshire puddings are big, puffy popovers with a different name. The difference between the two is that popovers are usually cooked in a bit of butter or oil, while Yorkshire puddings are usually cooked in beef drippings, or meat fat that has come off of a nice roast. I find that the names are interchangeable most of the time on most menus and I tend to call them Yorkshire puddings if I’m serving them with a roast and popovers the rest of the time, whether I’ve used butter or some other fat to make them. These Huge Yorkshire Puddings are perfect for entertaining because they’re easy to make, impressive and absolutely delicious.

Most popover recipes are very similar and all have the same basic ingredients of eggs, flour and milk in slightly different ratios. I’ve seen this recipe credited to Jamie Oliver a number of times, although I’m quite sure that other people have come up with the same combination before, but I’m going to give him credit because these are some of the best popovers I’ve ever made. This simple batter uses three eggs to one cup of flour and produces popovers with a dramatic rise. To get that great rise, you need to rest the batter for about 15 minutes between mixing and baking, and you need to bake them at a very high temperature. The high temperature causes all the steam to rise at once, pushing the popover batter to new heights quickly, and continued high heat lets them “set.”

Huge yorkshire puddings, up close

I use butter as my fat of choice because it consistently gives great flavor, but feel free to use roast drippings if you’re making a roast for a more traditional flavor! I put unmelted butter in the bottom of my pan, then pop it into the preheated oven just long enough to melt the butter, then pour in my batter and return it to the oven to bake. I used a popover pan and you will get the highest rise if you use one, but you can easily use a muffin tin if you don’t have one and still get good results. Popovers made in a muffin tin will be about half the size of those made in a popover pan, so you’ll get twice as many from this recipe. Serve these immediately, as that is when they will be at their peak, with a buttery flavor, crisp exterior and soft, eggy interior. They will fall slightly and soften a bit if you don’t serve them right away, but a few minutes on the rack in a hot oven will warm them up again if you really need to make them in advance.

Yorkshire puddings with jam!

Huge Yorkshire Puddings
(from a Jamie Oliver recipe)
1 cup milk
4-oz  all purpose flour (approx 1 cup*)
3 large eggs, room temperature
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter

Preheat oven to 450F. Lightly grease a popover pan (or a muffin tin) with vegetable oil.
Whisk together milk, flour, eggs and salt until batter is very smooth. Let batter rest for 15 minutes.
Place 1 tsp butter in each cavity of the popover pan (1/2 tsp each for muffin tin). Place pan in hot oven just long enough to melt the butter, 1-2 minutes.
Evenly divide batter into prepared pan. Each cup should be filled approximately halfway.
Bake for 20 minutes, until dark golden brown and puffy.
Serve immediately.

*Note: It is best to measure the flour, but 4-oz of all purpose flour is about 1 cup, if you gently spoon the flour into the measuring cup (don’t pack it in!).

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23 Comments
  • Rachel
    November 17, 2010

    Huge is right! They look like they’re blasting off!
    Thanks for clearing up the difference between Yorkshire pudding and popovers.
    I read somewhere that if you’re making popovers in a muffin tin, it helps to only fill every other well. Is that true?

  • Nicole
    November 17, 2010

    Rachel – I’ve never tried that! If you do give it a try, let me know how it works!

  • Anita
    November 17, 2010

    My family visited York last time we were in England, we saw some salad plate sized Yorkshire puddings while we there (YUM)!

  • Karen at Globetrotter Diaries
    November 17, 2010

    These are beautiful!! I just love popovers/yorkshire pudding. I make them for sunday brunch a lot with some fruit jam and butter. Next week I’ll be making them with a rib roast for Thanksgiving– tune in and check it out on my blog!

  • Annie
    November 18, 2010

    I learned from an English chef that the correct way to eat a Yorkshire pudding is to open it up and stuff the hollow center with mashed potatoes and gravy or other items from your plate. He made wonderful Yorkshire pudding, and it tasted great that way.

  • Nicole
    November 18, 2010

    Annie – That sounds like a great way to eat them to me!

  • ChristineZ
    November 26, 2010

    Okay–i made these for our dinner-after-Thanksgiving prime rib dinner (every year we make turkey…and then make prime rib the night afterwards)…BEST popover/yorkshire pudding recipe ever! I got mighty high rising yorkshire puddings, even using muffin tins! This is now my go-to recipe for yorkshire puddings! Thank you for sharing.

  • katie
    December 1, 2010

    Properly, Yorkshire puddings would be wider than they are high, about half the size of your dinner plate, baked in a flat tin so not that high. Those are definitely popovers I’m afraid!
    This picture is a tin about 10″ square
    http://www.johnlewis.com/230497724/Product.aspx

  • Alli
    January 2, 2011

    I’m English/Welsh and we wouldn’t have these with jam/butter unless we lived in Yorkshire. We’d have them with a “roast dinner” – roast beef usually, but you can have it with roast pork, lamb or chicken.

    We also serve them whole on the plate swimming in dark gravy and we’d usually have roast potatoes with them rather than mashed.

    The only exception to this would be sausage and mash and you often get a roast dinner or sausage and mash served in a massive dinner plate sized yorkshire pudding in restaurants/pubs over here.

    Your popovers/yorkshire puddings look great, have you tried Jamie’s toad in the hole recipe,? It’s fab, it’s sausages cooked in the popover batter and it’s one of my favourite recipes.

  • Joanne
    January 30, 2011

    Your recipe states “4 oz = approximately 1 cup”?? Where I come from 1 cup is 8 oz?

    So what is it 1/2 a cup or 1 cup?

    Thanks

  • Nicole
    January 30, 2011

    Joanne – When you’re measuring dry ingredients, ounces refers to weight, not volume; 8-oz to 1 cup is a volume measure for liquid ingredients, such as water and milk.

  • Stacy
    October 23, 2011

    My best secret to Yorkshire Pudding is that every ingredient HAS to be at room temperature. The milk too, not just the eggs. It makes the steaming that happens in the oven happen so well, and they rise so high!

  • Nicole
    July 19, 2012

    I lived in West Yorkshire for most of my life and Ive never heard of a yorkshire pudding being eaten with jam, we have ours the size of a plate with roast beef and onion gravy inside, infact we are having that tonight!

  • Elaine
    January 3, 2014

    I was born in Yorkshire, and Yorkshire pudding is served with a typical roast beef dinner. Popovers I believe are just an American version. Yorkshire pudding is definitely a savory not sweet dish

  • bethany
    March 6, 2014

    These were requested from my boyfriend for his bday. I made them in muffin tins and he loved them! he just ate them with additional butter (it’s his birthday so he’s allowed) but what a simple quick recipe to impress! thanks so much 🙂

  • Jessica
    March 18, 2014

    Made these yesterday and they turned out great! I ate mine with some bluberry preserves.

  • Bobbie
    January 1, 2015

    butter? Really? I’ve made these dozens of times,so I know better,but still I made my guests wait while is used axon I of butter and veg oil,preheated at 450 for 5 mins,and it burnt! No butter for Yorkshire puds.

  • Aeron Lane
    August 26, 2017

    They do look good
    When I was young growing up in Yorkshire (York) we never ate our Yorkshire puds with our main course, we had them as a starter served with onion gravy, the point behind this was to fill you up with pudding first then you didn’t want so much meat for main and the joint could be stretched out to Monday to make a cottage or shepherds pie.
    Traditionally the pudding was baked under the meat (joint layer directly on the oven rack) and a pan below to catch the drippings, then when the joint was taken out to rest the pan would be drained of the meat juice and the fat and batter returned to the oven to cook, it does make for a stodgier pud but covered in gravy it’s lush.
    One thing we definitely don’t do though is eat our puddings with jam and cream!

  • Kim
    April 1, 2018

    Would it work to make these with white whole wheat flour? I’m trying to eat healthier. Thanks!

  • Nicole
    April 2, 2018

    They might be a bit heavier, but the recipe will still work. If you can find whole wheat pastry flour (a lighter flour that is still whole wheat, great for cakes and other desserts), give that a try to get more rise with whole grains in this recipe.

  • Janet
    November 23, 2018

    I just made these Yorkshire popovers for our Thanksgiving dinner. They came out perfect! I followed the recipe exactly, weighing the flour.
    They are my new way to do Yorkshire puddings from now on. I’m sharing the recipe with all my other English friends.
    Thanks for sharing

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