Love popovers! When I was a teen that was one of my favorite recipes to make for an after school snack. That and French onion soup. Have not made either in years. Maybe this weekend.

Popovers are what I served to my grandkids and told them they were dinged with a magic wand.

Yum!! Love popovers, especially eggy and soft.

I used to love a yorkshire pudding too, but I haven't made a roast beef in years.

My pans are still on the counter, from Christmas when I didn’t actually get around to making them. Maybe some (edit) popovers are in order before the pans finally disappear downstairs again.

I've never made them, but I want to try now!

We had yummy Yorkshire puddings for New Year's.

FOAS, popovers are not the same as turnovers. Did I understand you correctly?

dcarch

Carol, there's very little difference! Popovers pop for being in a tall narrow cup. I have a popover pan too, but only the one. Pain to store. Given that there's no such thing, to the best of my knowledge, as a turnover pan, I think FOAS just has an autocorrect/typo thing going on. Well... If you underfill a divided sandwich pan, I suppose you could seal the triangles to make them look sort of like turnovers... I want popovers!! The pan is in the kitchen, even though it's at the bottom of the stack. I don't know who else would eat them, though, and I don't want all the popovers!

"--- I don't know who else would eat them, though, and I don't want all the popovers! "

Old popovers make spectacular soup.

dcarch

Whenever we talk about popovers here I think of this :

Jim Henson’s “Frog Prince”

Popovers can also be filled with things, like: creamed chicken; stew; even peanut butter. ;-) let your imagination go wild.

What's the difference between popovers and Yorkshire puds?

Beef fat in the bottom of the pan....popovers use butter.

FOAS, popovers are not the same as turnovers. Did I understand you correctly?

Yes you read my mistake correctly. I had the same question as Islay last night and made the same error googling. Caught it there but didn’t think to check back here. Corrected; thanks for popping over for clarification!

I made mine in a muffin tin. Yorkshire pudding I always made in an 8x8 pan.

You can make popovers with any kind of fat, though in the USA, at least, we define Yorkshire pudding by it being made in pan drippings, but it's mostly the shape and texture. Our Yorkshire pudding is usually short and wide, and fairly dense and creamy, often made as a whole rather than individual pieces, as Annie Deighnaugh mentioned. The individual ones I've seen made in a cupcake/muffin tin, aare high on the sides and hollow on top, just like the bigger ones.

Popovers can be made in muffin tins or custard cups, but ideally are made in a taller, narrower cup that helps them climb. The object is a big topknot of fluff above the lip of the cup, and hollow below. They're crisper on the outside, especially the base, than Yorkshire puddings, on average, but since they're siblings there's a lot of crossover. Cook them less, they're softer. Popovers that aren't crisp enough and fall look like Yorkshire puddings. The batter is very similar.

dcarch, I'm struggling to get my head around that one...I can't mentally put those two flavors together.

I have made a pancake though that puffs and collapses and then fill it with fruit filling...quite yummy.

Plllog, I'm sorry but you have a strange idea as to what a yorkie is. It HAS to be light, hollow, crisp, puffy....never denze or creamy. People who get results like that are usually using the wrong flour, like cake flour.

A yorkie can be a big pan one, or individual ones. It can be plain, or made into toad in the hole.

It can be cooked with pan drippings, beef fat or olive oil. It doesn't matter. What matters is that the fat/oil is very hot when you pour in the batter.

The batter is measured by volume.

3 glasses. Break 2 eggs into one. In the 2 others, equal volume PLAIN flour, the other, milk.

Beat, add salt and pepper and away you go.

A yorkie comes from God's own country and can't be messed about lol. That's what Yorkshire people will tell you. It is as English as the roast beef of old England.

So, what is the difference with a popover, apart from the butter?

From discussions I read the other day, seems like none.

I love popovers -- we always have them Christmas Eve with Lobster Bisque! My favorite "quick" bread (although their baking time makes them not so quick.

Aargh....all this talk sent me to the recipe file to make some......and my wonderful never fail recipe somehow got deleted!! It seems I am popover challenged and many years ago Ginger ( remember her? Lived in St Thomas? Called herself ginger beachy?) posted a never fail always correct always pops, recipe.....and I copied and never had a failure.
Anyone but me save her recipe? What I remember is it had an extra egg white.

IC, that's why I said, "in the USA." I figured they might not be authentic to the actual Yorkshire made ones. Can you define "plain" flour?

I would have said Dcarch's looked a lot more like Yorkshire pudding than a popover, but since they're more or less the same batter, there is no distinct line.

it's the "pop" that makes them popovers.

Martha Stewart:

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette showing interior and how they look in the pan. Like choux puffs, popovers can be soft with eggy membranes all through the interior, or a little longer in the oven, which is crisper and more hollow. This one is kind of perfect, with the eggy interior, especially in the top, but golden crisp and hollow:

Linda, you posted Ginger's recipe here:

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/2494285/help-me-make-perfect-popovers-please#n=5

Pillog....how did you find that? Never occurred to me that I had shared it here.
and I am puzzled because of the many fails I have had making popovers, I presumed that it was because i didn't have the proper egg to flour and milk ratio.....but I see so many recipes containing more milk and flour and fewer eggs....

How come? And I never do more than grease the popover pan cups....never put butter or oil in the bottom....and they pop big and beautiful....WHEN they do pop!!

Linda, I did an internal search on "ginger beachy popover" and got some good possibles. The title of the one I linked included "perfect popovers" which sounded promising, as did the relatively few posts, so I opened it first, and there you were. I figured your post with the recipe was as good or better than Ginger's original, so that was that.

I do put the hot fat in the bottom of the cups. I think the point of it is that the heat of the fat sets off the steaming and popping that much faster.

Cold is the enemy of popovers popping, and I think it's the usual suspect in pop failure. It can also be too much flour or too little water content in the milk and eggs. One of the tips I learned years ago was to warm the fat in the cups in the oven before filling. Not hot, just warm.

Maybe I should make popovers this weekend.

Lindac, Why not just try the volume method? If they're the same, then it will work! Plllog, those crisp ones look just right. Plain flour is just that...... no raising agent. All purpose?

Ah! Not self-rising. I get that. Grainlady has surely posted a better explanation than mine, but we have a lot of different flours. Traditionally--I don't know if modern farming has changed this--in the South they grew soft wheat, which has less protein, and in the north they grew hard wheat which has more protein. The former is better for cakes, the latter for bread. The national mills came up with the idea of mixing the two to get a flour that's strong enough to hold a yeast rise but soft enough not to make tough cakes. That's AP=All Purpose. It also usually has a dash of barley, but I forget why.

Avid bakers also buy cake flour and bread flour, and sometimes mix their own AP rather than store a third. Really avid bakers choose flour by flour, mill by mill, to get the exact texture and protein content they prefer. I like using different flours because there really is a variety in the eating, but you really can make just about anything out of AP.

Daniel Leader, in his bread recipes, talks about standard French flour, or maybe it's French bread flour, that isn't as highly refined as our white flours. He instructs to use 95% unbleached white and 5% whole wheat to get a similar result. I know nothing about UK flour at all. :)

I want to make these!
https://www.halfbakedharvest.com/parmesan-popovers/

@plllog, I am trying to figure out how to do a search as you did. Everytime I put something in the "search" window, the following comes up:

Perfect Popovers in Advice

Perfect Popovers in Photos

Perfect Popovers in Shop

Perfect Popovers in Find a Pro

Perfect Popovers in Stories

Perfect Popovers in Users

Even though I am in the Cooking forum, “in Cooking” does not come up as a selection. Only the ones listed above come up. This has been going on for months now. Perhaps I have forgotten how to do a search correctly and sure would appreciate being educated on how to do one. TIA

Oh my, Bumblebeez, those sagey ones sound delicious.

WalnutCreek, I don't know what's wrong. Maybe as simple as clearing your cache? "In cooking" comes up for me and that's what I use. At this point, internal works better than Google, but only with the "in" links. Maybe try doing an "in advice" search, which I seem to remember is supposed to be global for the forums, and then see if "in cooking" comes up? Or see if you're in gardenweb.com/discussions?

Look in your address bar. If it says "Gardenweb.com" search works better. If it says "Houzz.com" you will get search results like you are getting. Look at the top for "Get Ideas", hover or click, and select Garden Web. That should change your address bar to gardenweb.com/discussions 

Thanks for the tips, plllog and tigereye. I was in Houzz.com. Will always make sure I am in gardenweb from now on. Did try a search and at least "in The Kitchen Table" came up, but no Cooking forum. Strange. Tried the "in advice," and was very disappointed. Will keep trying. Again, thank you so much.

Mmm - agreeing that parmesan popover recipe looks yummy!

Were you inthe cooking forum when you tried? The first option is the forum you're in. The rest are algorithm best guess.

I was in the cooking forum.

Yikes! :(

Traditionally the fat should be smoking hot when you pour in the batter. And don’t open the oven until they’re done!

If you’re ever in Amherst, MA, Judie’s Restaurant has them on the menu. They were delicious. Check out the menu to see what they’re filled with.

https://judiesrestaurant.com/

Judie's sounds like a great place to check out! Maybe next time I head to WEBS for yarn...

Yorkshire Pudding seems heavier than popovers. Our local prime roast beef English restaurant serves popovers and calls them Yorkshire pudding. I know I must make this never fail recipe tomorrow morning. Sounds like a good breakfast bread for sure. I have popover pans son gave me for Christmas and I have not initiated them yet.

Yorkshire pudding is only heavy if its badly made or reheated.....

Those parmesan ones sound really good.

Plllog, there is a difference between British flour and French but I have no idea what lol. Many of my old cake recipes aren't so good with French flour and I haven't investigated as to why. It's easier just to use French recipes......

There are a great many recipes, and a great deal of crossover, but I also think that what we call a Yorkshire pudding, at least in some parts or subcultures of the USA is just somewhat different to what it is in the UK. I trust Islay Corbel as to what real Yorkshire pudding from actual Yorkshire, England is. We have denser flatter ones here, compared with popovers.

It's like the "American pie" thing. A whole nation was appalled and nattering at the definition of "American pie" on The Great British Bake Off/Baking Show (same show, different names for legal reasons). Paul Hollywood, the utterer of said definition is indeed a baking expert, so I accept that open faced sugar bombs, if I remember right and haven't blocked it out, is the definition of "American Pie" there. I'm sure such things do exist here, but the iconic "American as apple pie" pie, has a top crust and is sweetened but also has a sour component--think Granny Smith apples. We add rhubarb to strawberry pies, lemon to blueberry pies, etc, to give them more complexity and to battle the sugar. And now that the sugar isn't an essential preservative (think post ice box), we use a lot less of it too. What Mr. H described, sounded to me more like a jam tart. But we call anything with spinach "Florentine" and outside of California, adding avocado to a sandwich, among other things, gets it called by the name of the state (CA) that's famous for growing them. So the average English "American pie" is just something a bit different than ours. More specific, yet slightly off from our norm. Same with American Yorkshire pudding, which might even be a popover with a fancy name.

OTOH, the more golden popover in the Pittsburgh picture I posted looks "better" to me and I posted the Martha picture to show what the bottom looks like out of the pan. They're a little dark. They're both made in deep, tall popover pans. Those are usually dark as well, and the crust can kind of fry in the fat and dark well. Of course, oven time also affects them. Martha's have popped, but to me look like they had too much flour, and are breadier than eggier inside. That's a choice. It depends how you like it. I like eggier with the big topknot. Popovers made in shorter, wider cups are more likely to fall (leave in cooling oven with the door open to stabilize and steam off. Other kinds of smooth, eggy batters can pop too.

Oh my, I made this recipe this morning for our breakfast and used my new popover cups instead of the muffin cups I have always used. The Never Fail recipe made 6 huge ones, so tall that they risked hitting the top of my oven. I had 2 with my tea for my breakfast and figured I was eating the equivalent of an egg, a slice of toast and 1/3 cup of milk. I will be doing this again.

In addition to the correct recipe, popover is all about thermodynamics.

Popover pan design is optimized for the thickness of the metal, airflow spacing and shape of geometry.

Many come with non-stick surface, so you don't have to use a lot of oil or fat.

dcarch

Tested the search function this morning in the Cooking forum. Made sure I was in gardenweb and, finally, the search for "in Cooking" came up. Again, thank you so much, plllog, for teaching me how to have success when conducting a search.

Although I have made and enjoyed Yorkshire pudding all of my life (my parents were British), I have never made popovers. I may just have to give it a try :-)

But a big portion of the appeal of Yorkshire pud, at least to me, is the flavor imparted by the beef drippings it is baked in. And the small amount of doughiness..........neither of which would be present with the popovers.