Rosemary Popovers for Home Bakers Challenge

Popovers are airy, light, hallow rolls made with an egg batter and baked in muffin pans or popover pans. Popover pans are straight walled pans unlike muffin pans which are angled. Popovers can be served for breakfast with some jam, fruits or whipped cream or as an afternoon snack. It can also be served for lunch or dinner with some meat.

For the month of August, from the bakes we were challenged to bake for Home Bakers Challenge, popovers caught my eye. I never baked popovers before the recipe we were given was tempting. I even bought a popover pan to bake these. Nowadays I just need an excuse to buy more baking pans 🙂 Anyway, I was supposed to post this bake couple of weeks ago and I am again late in posting my HBC. I only got to bake these couple of days ago. Thanks Saras for challenging us to bake popovers.

I attempted baking these last Saturday and was planning on taking it to mini bloggers meet we had that day. I woke up early and popped the popovers in the oven and within 10 minutes my fire alarm went off. I had to turn off the oven and pull out the pan. The butter from the pan spilled over and the oven was filled with smoke. I fill the popover pan with too much batter and second, I forgot to put the popover pan on a baking sheet, in case the butter or batter spilled over. Second time I baked these couple of days ago; I filled the batter only half way in the popover cups and also placed the pan in a baking sheet. I made ½ the recipe and used a mini popover pan. Muffin pan can also be used and do not fill more than halfway in each muffin cup. The recipe looks long but the preparation is not that tedious at all and in fact, it is a quick and easy recipe.

Source: Marin Mama Cooks
Total Time: 50 – 60 minutes
Preparation: 25 minutes (includes preheating the oven, preheating takes 15 minutes)
Baking Time: 30 – 32 minutes
Yields: 9 mini popovers or 3 regular sized popovers (the recipe said 6 mini popovers but i got 9)

Ingredients:

• 1 extra Large Egg, at room temperature
• ½ cup Whole Milk (I used skim milk)
• ½ tbsp. Unsalted Butter, melted
• ½ cup All Purpose Flour
• ⅛ tsp. fine Kosher Salt (I used regular iodized salt)
• 1 tbsp. fresh Rosemary, minced (about 2 ½ stalks)
• ¾ tsp. Coarse Sea Salt (dash of salt on each batter filled popover cups)
• 1 tbsp. Butter, melted (this is to grease the pan)

Preparation:

Pre-heat the oven after mixing the batter

• Melt butter in the microwave for 20 – 30 seconds until melted or melt on a stove stop.
• In a bowl whisk together egg, milk and butter until completely combined. I used an electric whisk. One can even use a hand whisk.
• Take flour and salt into a bowl and mix it. Gradually blend the flour mixture to wet ingredients and whisk until frothy. If whisking with hand, you need to do lot of whisking for the flour to blend into the wet ingredients.
• Wash and pull the leaves off the rosemary stalks. Chop or mince the rosemary and add it to the batter. Whisk once and keep the batter aside until the oven is preheat. This gives the batter to rest and the flour to absorb the liquid and this gives popovers a nice texture.
• Pre-heat the oven to 400 F. Put the empty popover pan in the oven and preheat the oven again, this time to 450F. The over should be 450F to bake the popovers.
• While the pan is heating, melt the butter to grease the pan.
• Once the oven is heated to 450 F, pull out the empty popover pan and distribute the butter evenly in the popover cups. Butter will sizzle and might even brown, but that is ok.
• Whisk the batter one more time to froth it up. Give it a good whisk.
• Fill the cups halfway with batter. Sprinkle dash of sea salt on the top of the popovers. If using a regular size pan, sprinkle about pinch of sea salt. Note - do not fill more than halfway that could lead to batter or butter spilling over the pan.
• Place a baking sheet in the middle rack and place the popover pan on it. It is to make sure there is no spillage in the over and if the batter or butter pops over and spills, it would be collected in the cookie sheet. Bake for 15 – 17 minutes at 450 F until the popovers begin the brown and rise. Do not open the oven door while baking. This could lead to deflated popovers. You can keep the oven light to see the transformation.
• Reduce the temperature to 350 F and bake for another 15 minutes until popovers are brown and crisp.
  Immediately remove the popovers from the pan and cool on a cooling rack or a plate. Leaving them in the pan will cause the bottoms to get wet from the butter.
• Serve them right away when warm, fresh from the oven. If you made them ahead, warm them on a baking sheet at 250 F until warm and crisp, about 5 minutes.
• Serve popovers with jam, Nutella or fresh fruits for breakfast or as a snack or with some meats or stew for lunch or dinner. I ate them for lunch with some chicken gravy curry.

Note: (I am copy pasting the note from the source recipe )

• “Note: Finished popovers will be golden-brown, feel dry to the touch, and sound hollow when tapped. My popovers always take 30-32 minutes to cook to perfection."
• "Popovers rise up and come out differently each time, so don't be weirded out if you see a strange looking one.”