Julia Child's Popovers A Classic Recipe Made Easy (2024)

FAQs

Why are my popovers not airy? ›

Preheating your oven to the correct temperature is probably the most important thing you can do to ensure popover success. The hotter your oven, the higher your popovers will rise. Which makes sense: the faster liquid in the batter turns into steam, the more chance your popover has to expand before its crust sets.

Chef's Notes. The difference between popovers and Yorkshire puddings is that Yorkshires use the beef fat (the drippings from a beef roast). These popovers are a bit lighter in flavor and you can also prepare them before the roast is even done.

1. Don't be afraid of butter. Julia famously said, “With enough butter, anything is good.” She ferociously loved butter at a time when most people in the United States were completely afraid of it.

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.

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.

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.

Yorkshire Pudding/ Popovers

Yorkshire Puddings are a staple in England with a Roast Dinner. Here in the US we know them as Popovers which are the same thing as the modern Yorkshire Pudding, except using a different pan.

Popover batter is basically identical to crepe batter. Both batters are thin -- about the consistency of heavy cream -- and both are just mixed, not beaten, so as not to excite the gluten in the flour.

As we alluded to earlier, popovers were invented in America, while Yorkshire pudding was first conceptualized in England.

“This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook- try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun!.”

Does Julia Child use salted or unsalted butter? ›

“Some would cite Julia Child or another prominent baking book author who said to always use unsalted butter.

Child's set included a backdrop for this very purpose, where she would perch at the end of each episode to dig in — and it was where she memorialized her famous closing line, which was, in fact, ad-libbed, just as portrayed in “Julia”: “Bon appétit!”

Or the interior – intended to be a soft, gooey, scrambled-egg-like substance – is too undercooked to eat. Tips to avoid these popover pitfalls vary: Use a popover pan instead of a muffin pan, poke them with a knife after baking to dry them out, start with a cold oven, heat up the pan before pouring in the batter.

We like to make popovers in large batches and then reheat the leftovers the next day or two. These popovers taste best warm out of the oven and even better when topped with with a smear of butter, jam, or apple butter.

Popovers are great to have with soup, salad, or alongside roast chicken, roast beef, or just about anything you would serve with rolls. They're also fantastic as a breakfast treat, sprinkled with confectioner's sugar and served with butter and jam. Afternoon pick-me-up with coffee or tea, anybody?

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.

Add Sugar

Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.

An additional trick for keeping popovers crisp is to gently poke a hole in the side of each one with a sharp knife when you remove it from the pan to allow extra team to escape without deflating the crust dome.

The tall narrow cups of the popover pan force the popovers up and up, and the steam comes together to make one big bubble which remains after they've baked, giving them their characteristic hollow center.