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

FAQs

What is the best flour to use for popovers? ›

Seeking Optimal Lift and Crispness

Not only were popovers made with bread flour about 30 percent taller than those made with all-purpose flour, but their higher walls were also thinner, making them a bit more crisp, and that crispness held up as they cooled. Bread flour was in. Next up: the milk.

Chef's Notes. The difference between popovers and Yorkshire puddings is that Yorkshires use the beef fat (the drippings from a beef roast).

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.

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.

Let batter rest for 15 minutes while you preheat the oven. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F and place rack in the bottom third position (to make room for tall popovers and to ensure the tops don't burn!) and another rack in the top position.

A Reine de Saba cake is a French, rich, sophisticated, chocolate cake made with ground almonds, rum, meringue and of course chocolate. It's topped with a chocolate ganache and can be decorated with almond slices. It's said to be one of the first French cakes that Julia Child ever ate and fell in love with!

Growing to a height of six feet, two inches, Child was the natural choice to be captain of the school's basketball team. She was also president of the Vagabonds, a hiking club. Child's parents always intended for her to go on to college after high school.

Child's last meal of French onion soup was actually prepared by someone else; though, The Los Angeles Times reported when the news of her death broke. Though Child was in her own home when it happened, her assistant Stephanie Hersh was the one who had cooked the French onion soup.

According to The Kitchn, popovers are airy and fluffy in nature—boasting a golden brown exterior like Yorkshire pudding. In fact, this pastry is made with a similar batter of flour, salt, eggs, milk, and butter. Another fun fact—a popover gets its name from the “dramatic rise” caused by the steam.

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.

What do you eat with popovers? ›

What to Serve With Popovers. 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.

Start with room-temperature ingredients. Why? Room temperature ingredients mix together to form pockets of air, which when baked result in a higher rise. If you want your popovers to rise high, let your ingredients come to room temperature before mixing.

These tins are really only useful for making popovers, but oh, what beautiful popovers they make! Popover pans are distinguished from regular muffin tins by their deep, steep-sided wells. This forces the batter upwards and results in a popover with a puffy dome and crispy sides.

And be sure to grease not only the cups, but the surface around them as well. The popovers are going to balloon up and over the edges of the wells. Fill the cups about 2/3 to 3/4 full. Put the pan in the oven, on a lower rack.

The container forms the steam released in the oven heat into one giant bubble. This steam is contained with gluten from flour proteins, starch, and protein from eggs. So the popover literally 'pops' with steam, but the steam doesn't escape because the stretchy protein holds it inside the batter.

Self-Rising Flour

Self-rising flour is a convenient all-purpose flour with, the leavening agent, baking soda and salt added during milling. It has an 8–9 percent protein content and produces a nice, high rise for quick bread type baking.

Rice flour and cornstarch work particularly well because they fry up crispier than wheat flour. They also absorb less moisture and fat during the frying process, making the products less greasy. This is why rice flour is often used when making tempura because it produces a very thin and crispy, dry crust.

Because popovers rely on steam to rise — as opposed to baking powder, baking soda, or yeast — you want your batter warm when entering the oven. This King Arthur Flour article says it best: “The warmer your batter going into the oven, the more quickly it'll produce steam: simple as that.”