Popovers - 3 ingredients (not including salt). This is a food challenge I dream of. Last time I spun out of control in pursuit of this ethereal delicacy it was for a friendsgiving in 2012. Despite some good batches, I still realized too much of the dreaded post bake popover collapse.
I was inspired to resurrect this battle after an episode of @GuyFieri's TripleD (I happen to be Guy's only fan in the world, I watch marathon sessions of TripleD Friday nights). A cook in a diner made gruyere and pepper popovers that looked fantastic and demonstrated a prep in which I gleaned some key information.
- Ingredients - (good consensus) eggs 100 g, flour 135 g, milk 120 g, salt 3 g, mix, lumps allowed. This produces a pourable batter. I placed my ingredients in a used water bottle and shook it to mix. This diner chef stated all ingredients need to be at room temperature. This is what I thought might be 1 key piece of information. Given that eggs and milk are stored in the fridge, I wondered if past attempts utilized a room temp batter. This time, I mixed the batter and decided to wait until it was at room temp, hours if necessary - I figured the worst that could happen is it could start to ferment and/or I'd get nil rise.
- Pan - popover pan, I use this one - same as the one in TripleD.
- Preheating - preheat pan to baking temp, 375F.
- Lube - The chef on TripleD spray-lubed the preheated pan. I added a tablespoon of vegetable oil into the bottom of each cup prior to adding the batter.
- Baking - Removed preheated pan from the oven, lubed each cup and poured in batter. I noticed the diner chef took her time, filled each cup with batter and then added a few chunks of cheese to the top of the batter followed by cracked pepper. I was surprised there was no rush to get the hot pan back in the oven. I did the same, pouring the batter into the middle of the pool of vegetable oil in the bottom of each cup (this oils the cup as it fills with batter). I only made 3 at a time and used a tablespoon of reggiano instead of gruyere and a bunch of coarse cracked pepper (crushed on my cutting board). I took my time and placed the filled pan back in the 375F oven.
- Baking time - 45 minutes to an hour!! I can't recall seeing any temp/time profile like this, I figured they'd burn. But no, both runs went well.
That's it! Mix ingredients, shake well, let batter sit at least until it hits room temp - I used mine with good results at 3 hours and 9 hours aged. Pour into prepared pan (preheated to 375) to fill cups to 3/4 full, top (or not) with cheese, bake in 375F oven for 50 minutes. Remove from oven, gently pull them out of their baking cups, eat immediately.
Added all ingredients using a funnel to this 1L HDPE bottle and shook it vigorously.
After 375 for 50 minutes. These were the parmesan/pepper popovers. Added ingredients become embedded into the surface of the popped cap of the popover.
Characteristic steamy light interior, exterior firm, slightly crunchy/crisp. These were made with the batter aged at 3 hours.
Eventually, at 9 hours aged, my batter started to look separated and runny. I decided to try it anyway, preheated the pan and prepared for another run. I filled the popover cups and topped them with some finely diced apples I sauteed in butter and sugar. The popovers were just as lofty as before and didn't collapse a bit upon exit from the oven.
I consider popovers a finished project and now look forward to building different fillings into them, e.g., pour batter, add topping, pour more batter, bake and see if I can get the filling tucked inside rather than embedded on top. Maybe I'll even tuck a meatball inside - but I fear the results. If it works I might die from euphoria. I might wait for that one.
Buy a popover pan and make these.
/drops mic
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