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Popovers
Beat an egg until light, add half a pint of milk and a pinch of salt, and gradually beat this into half a pound of flour. Bake in little tins in a very hot oven for fifteen or twenty minutes. Eat hot for breakfast, split open and buttered. Probable cost, 4d.
A four-line recipe that leaves out most of what makes popovers rise. The proportions and the oven are where the attention should go.
- The hinge: heatThe book gives no temperatures, and "a very hot oven" is usually read today as somewhere around 425-450F. The tins should be in it, greased and hot, before the batter goes in; popovers rise largely on steam, and a lukewarm tin gives you dense little cakes. Better not to open the door for the first fifteen minutes.
- Half a pintIn an English book of this date that is an imperial half-pint, 10 fl oz, or about 1 1/4 US cups. Half a pound of flour is roughly 225g, about 1 3/4 cups scooped.
- The batter is too thick as givenModern popover formulas run near equal volumes of flour and milk with two eggs. At 8 oz flour to 10 fl oz milk and a single egg, this batter is closer to a thick pancake batter and will climb poorly. Thinning it toward pouring consistency and adding a second egg brings it nearer modern practice.
- Beat, then restBeat until smooth and quite loose. Modern practice is often to let the batter stand about 30 minutes at room temperature, though how much difference the resting and the temperature make is debated.
- "Little tins"Deep straight-sided cups give the best lift: a proper popover pan, or dariole moulds. A standard muffin tin works but yields squatter results because the cups are wide and shallow.
- TimingFifteen to twenty minutes at high heat sets the shell, but the insides may still be wet. A common modern remedy is to drop the oven to around 350F for a further ten to fifteen minutes to dry them out, then pierce each one to let the steam escape.
- YieldPerhaps eight to ten from this quantity, depending on the tin. They deflate quickly once out of the oven, so serve them immediately, split and buttered as directed.
- Cost4d is fourpence in pre-decimal currency, the sort of figure Cassell's gave throughout to let a housekeeper compare dishes at a glance.
The popover is an American name for a very old English idea: a plain egg-and-milk batter baked in a hot oven until it inflates into a hollow shell, the same principle as Yorkshire pudding cooked in individual tins rather than a dripping pan. The name appears in nineteenth-century American cookery writing, and is traditionally explained by the batter's habit of popping over the rims of its cups -- an explanation that is folk etymology rather than documented fact. Its appearance here, alongside a costing in pence, marks it as the kind of cheap, quick breakfast bread a Victorian kitchen could produce from storecupboard staples with no yeast, no waiting and no skill beyond a hot oven.