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Homemade Popovers, crunchy, custardy, dramatic, buttery towers of joys flowing out of a little cup are secretly the easiest dessert you have ever attempted.

I have avoided making popovers like the plague my entire life because I didn’t want to get a dedicated unitasking pan. More on popover pans later. Despite my grumpiness, the popovers won they over and wore me down.

Truly, there are few recipes that take seconds to put together and require so little of you in the baking. Popovers bake up into theatrical heights with a handful of ingredients that you probably already have. If you add some sauteed fruit or better yet, custard sauce? You’ll make a friend out of a sworn enemy.

If you think I’m exaggerating, give this recipe a shot and see for yourself.

Homemade Popovers

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popover on plate with peaches, popovers in ceramic custard cups and text overlay

My brief history with popovers/popover like things

My Greek uncle’s Mom was Irish (weird, but true). She would invite us to Thanksgiving every year and made unbelievably ambitious spreads. One of her specialties besides her magnificent colcannon (I hear angels when I type that word!) was Yorkshire Pudding. Yorkshire puddings are really similar to popovers, though they’re meant to be savory. I sat in her kitchen watching these things bubble under a roast, fascinated with how they rose in the pan.

Since then, my kids have adopted the noble Dutch baby as their favorite birthday breakfast. A Dutch baby is really just a giant popover baked in a screaming hot pan. My son’s last birthday in the Spring, I tried a couple tricks that made the Dutch baby rise impossibly high. I started thinking about the popovers again…

Then my dear German friend and I had a conversation about pfitzauf, the German regional version of popovers from southern Germany. I was trying to track down a pfitzauf pan for my students, but they’re apparently hard to find outside of Swabia. My friend confirmed that her Mom couldn’t find one when she was a kid and made them differently. This time, I was determined.

Why popovers are amazing

Time: Not kidding, the batter comes together in about 5 seconds. Throw it in the fridge for as long as you feel like it, then add the butter right before they go in the oven. It is almost completely hands off.
Crispy outside, custardy inside: kind of like a cream puff, you get a wonderful contrast of textures in a popover. The outside that hits the screaming heat of the oven and the pan rise up and dry out into buttery crispy shells. The inside still has a little bit of custardy creaminess. It’s a good lesson on how simple things can give complex tastes.
Drama: like a souffle, opening up the oven to see how high popovers rise is where the show is. I remember talk about those Yorkshire puddings being the same.
Serve them how you like: You could eat them plain with butter, jam or just powdered sugar. I like to saute peaches, but any fruit in a great addition. Whatever you have on hand will make these taste good.

Ingredients you need to make popovers

Milk: whole. I’ve made them with non-dairy, and they won’t get as dramatic. My guess is that the protein in the milk plays a part.
Eggs: adds protein to the mix
Flour: all-purpose
Salt: for flavor
Butter: adds flavor in the batter and you need a good bit of it for the molds you choose.
Sugar: you don’t need it, but it’s a nice addition for a little flavor
Vanilla: same as the sugar; not necessary, but nice for a sweet popover.

How to make popovers

Whisk: Whisk eggs and milk together. Add in the flour. You can do this in a blender as I do for ease.
Refrigerate: the batter really needs to rest for at least an hour. In that time the gluten will calm down and the flour will fully absorb all the liquid it can.
Preheat: preheat your mold of choice (see below) at 425. Let the pan/molds heat for at least 15 minutes.
Melt: the butter for the batter. Blend the butter and the salt into the rested batter for about 1 second.
Butter: add a pat of butter to each well of the preheated pan. Use oven mitts to swish the butter around in the pan. You can instead use a pastry brush to quickly brush the sides with the rapidly melting butter.
Pour: pour in the batter about 1/2 way up each well.
Bake: Bake the popovers for about 30 minutes, turning down the temperature to 350 halfway through the cooking.

Do you actually need a popover pan to make popovers?

You don’t need a popover pan to make popovers, but popover pans give you a couple of advantages that the alternatives (ceramic custard cups and a muffin pan) don’t have.

Popover Pan

+ Consistent, even heat.
+ Metal, so sturdy.
+ Air holes so you get more heat circulating for higher popovers.
+ Tall sides so popovers rise high.
– A unitasking pan ;(

Ceramic Custard Cups

+ Tall sides, so popovers rise high
– Less sturdy, prone to cracking, especially with the high heat
+ Pretty!
+ Take up no extra space because you can stack them and you can use them for many things in the kitchen.

Muffin Pan

+ Consistent, even heat
+ Metal, so sturdy
+ If you bake every other well, you’ll still get some air circulating though not as much as a popover pan
– Short sides, so popovers rise quickly then fall over

I really really really wanted the ceramic custard cups to work. They do. I got lovely tall popovers, but ALL of my cups cracked.

That being said, I found my cups at the thrift store, so Lord only knows what they’d been through before I bought them on the cheap. Chances are they got banged around and developed hairline cracks that weren’t visible or a problem until they hit the high heat required for homemade popovers. If you use ceramic cups, make sure they are free of any obvious flaws.

If I didn’t have a popover pan in the mail, I’d stick with the muffin tin. Muffin tins are endlessly useful, and even if the popovers fall over, they will still be delicious. I’m not really sad with the look of any of these from the muffin tin even though they’re wildly imperfect:

How to get the best results when you make homemade popovers

Weigh your ingredients: this recipe is easy, though it works better in metric. The idea is for every egg you use, use 100 grams of flour and 50 of milk and 20 gram of butter. Weigh everything, and you’ll get perfect popovers every time.
Add salt and butter later: Mix everything except the salt and the butter before you rest the batter. If you put the salt in, it can discolor the eggs; if you add the butter in, it will solidify in the fridge. Add both in later and whisk briefly to combine, and your batter will be just right.
Hot oven, hot molds: the quick rising happens because when the outside of the popover hits the heat, it cooks quickly, forcing everything else upwards. If your oven is hot and the molds are hot, you’ll get the best results. Put your pan in when you turn on the oven and let it heat for at least 15 minutes.
Use convection if you have it: If you have a convection setting in your oven, use it. The fan will keep the hot air circulating, making the heat be even more efficient. If you don’t have a convection setting, it’s not crucial.
Turn down the heat: Turn down the heat about halfway through the baking process. The high heat will do everything it needs to make the popovers rise. Beyond that, the lower heat will dry out the custardy inside of the popover without the popovers burning.

Homemade Popovers

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Total Time: 31 minutes
Yield: 12 popovers

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Description

Sky high buttery muffin-like pastries with crunchy outsides and custardy insides. Pour over some custard sauce or serve it with sauteed fruit for the best homey dessert you’ve had in a while.

Ingredients

Scale

400 mL milk
4 large eggs
200 grams all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt
80 g butter plus more butter for the pan

Sauteed Peaches

Peaches, figure 1/2 per person
Sugar
Cinnamon
Butter–figure 2 tablespoons per pound of peaches
Shot of amaretto, whiskey, or rum (optional)

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Instructions

- Whisk the eggs and milk together until well-blended. Do this in a blender if you have one. It will take about 4 seconds.
- Add in the flour, vanilla, and sugar and whisk or blend until well-combined.
- Rest the egg/milk/flour batter in the fridge for at least an hour and up to 1 week.
- When you want to bake, preheat your popover pan or molds of choice in the oven at 425 (220C). Once the oven is at the full temperature, let the pan heat for about 15 minutes.
- While the pan is preheating, melt the 80 grams of butter. Take the batter out of the fridge and whisk in the butter and the salt just until combined.
- Take the hot pan out of the oven with oven mitts. Quickly place a generous pat of butter in each well of your mold. Pick up the pan with the mitts and swirl the butter around in the pan. Alternatively, use a pastry brush to brush around the rapidly melting butter.
- Fill the cups no more than halfway full, then put the pan into the oven.
- Bake at 425 for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, reduce the heat to 350 F (180 C) to bake for another 10-15 minutes until the outside of the popovers is well-browned but holding its shape.
Make the peaches
With the popovers in the oven, wash and peel the peaches. A serrated peeler works best here. Rough chop the peaches into about 1″ chunks.
1. - Melt some butter in a 12 inch skillet over medium low heat.
  - Toss the peaches in the butter, then allow them to cook until they pick up a little color.
  - Sprinkle on some sugar and a little cinnamon. Don’t overdo this. Peaches are sweet on their own and don’t need to swim in sugar. Treat the sugar like you would salt. Keep cooking the peaches, stirring them periodically until the sugar starts to caramelize on the peaches and in the pan. The peaches should be tender by now.
  - At this point, turn on your exhaust fan and pour over your alcohol of choice. Toss the peaches in it and either light it with a long lighter or tip the pan so that the liquid hits the flame to ignite (Amaretto doesn’t have enough alcohol to ignite). Obviously keep your face away from this process, and do not perform this task around kids or pets.
  - Let the peaches simmer for another minute.
  - Serve the popovers on their own dusted with powdered sugar or with a generous spoonful of peaches.