How to Make A Popovers Recipe in 3 Ways | Bigger Bolder Baking (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to good popovers? ›

My biggest tip for creating perfect popovers is to use warm milk and room-temperature eggs with absolutely no chill on them. Do not take the milk and eggs from the fridge and use them. Cold ingredients will give you dense popovers. Warm ingredients will give you light, airy, and perfect popovers.

The Secret to Popovers

So, the key to getting your popovers to rise as high as possible is to make sure there is a burst of heat at the very beginning of baking to create the steam, allowing the popover to rise quickly before the heat sets the shape and stops it from rising more.

Why are my popovers dense? Dense popovers (either from not rising or not getting nice hollows inside) can result from a couple things but usually it is by either not starting with room temperature eggs and milk, not preheating the popover pan, not using a quality popover tin, and/or making too thick of a batter.

Lots of steam is a good thing, but you need something to trap that steam — which is where flour and eggs come in. The gluten in flour (and protein from the eggs) create the structure that traps steam in rising popovers.

For maximum puff, we needed as thin and wet a batter as possible. We started by using low-fat milk instead of whole. We also let the batter rest for 25 minutes to give the flour time to fully hydrate.

Let the Batter Rest

3) Allow the batter to sit at room temperature for 1 hour before baking or, preferably. cover and refrigerate it for 24 up to 48 hours. Allow it to come to room temperature.

using room temperature eggs (see recipe for how to quickly bring your eggs to room temperature) room temperature milk (see recipe for how to quickly bring your milk to room temperature) hot oven. bread or all-purpose flour: for especially loft popovers, bread flour is your gal!

How to make popovers. Before we get started: all of your ingredients should be at warm room temperature. To warm ice-cold eggs from the fridge, place them in a cup of hot tap water for about 10 minutes.

You can make the batter ahead of time and bake the popovers the next day or prepare a batch start to finish and freeze them for later or keep a few on your counter. Check out the tips below to keep your popovers fresh. To make ahead: You can make the batter and refrigerate it for up to one day before baking.

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.

What are the biggest causes of popover failures? ›

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.

King Arthur Baking says that there are a few ways your popover could go wrong. First, you must use all-purpose flour because it has a solid gluten structure to capture all the steam. Secondly, you must make sure to preheat your oven because the hotter the oven, the higher the popovers.

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.

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.

If you don't want your beautiful popovers to collapse, simply use a sharp paring knife and pierce the bottom of the hot popovers to allow steam to escape and place them on a cooling rack. Do not let them cool in the pan, they'll lose their shape.

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.