Popovers

Bread Bible "popovers" that turned into dutch babies.

Total time:  45 minutes, plus time to make everything room temperature before beginning (about 1 hour at my house)

I normally leave the breads and baking to JB, but one day, I was making beef stew, and I decided to make bread to go with it. I had no idea that bread took so long… so I revised my search for “something faster”. I found this super awesome looking recipe for popovers in JB’s copy of The Bread Bible, and I thought: HAH! I can do that! I followed her detailed instructions to a T, because I wanted so desperately to show off. The result is shown to the right.

Completely disheartened, I turned to Alton Brown for help.

* 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus 1 teaspoon room temperature for pan
* 4 3/4 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 1 cup
* 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt (we used normal table salt)
* 2 large eggs, room temperature
* 1 cup whole milk, room temperature

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Grease a 6-cup popover or 8-cup cupcake pan with the 1 teaspoon of butter.  ( I used a 6-cup cupcake pan, and I had to do 2 popovers by themselves in a second round… not smart.  I now own a 12 cup cupcake pan, and I fill the 4 extra cups with water.)

Alton Brown's Popovers at the 30 minute mark.

Place all of the ingredients into a food processor or blender and process for 30 seconds. (I whisked it for 3 minutes.)

Divide the batter evenly between the cups of the popover pan, each should be about 1/3 to 1/2 full. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 40 minutes. Remove the popovers to a cooling rack and pierce each in the top with a knife to allow steam to escape. Serve warm.

The biggest key to this recipe is to make ALL of your ingredients be ROOM TEMPERATURE!! I cannot stress that enough! Cold eggs and milk will yield cute little dutch babies, which were dense little yummy treats, but not at all what I wanted. 😉

The second thing to remember is – as much as your heart desires to open the oven door to check on your popovers, DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR. Just put them in there, set the timer, and walk away.