German Puffs
1/2 pint of new milk INGREDIENTS for 6 puffs.-2 oz. of flour, 2 eggs, pint of new milk, 2 oz. of melted butter, a little salt and nutmeg. AVERAGE COST, 6d.
Let the 2 eggs be well beaten, then mix all the ingredients well together, and beat them up just before they are put into little cups half full for baking. Bake for 1/4 hour in a hot oven till the puffs are of a nice brown; turn out on a flat dish, rub a little butter over each puff, and dust on it powdered sugar.
TIME. hour.
SEASONABLE at any time.
This is a popover batter — a thin egg-and-milk mixture that rises on steam alone — baked in individual cups and finished with butter and sugar. Two details in the original have lost their fractions in printing, so read the quantities and the time with care.
- The milk quantityTwo ounces of flour to two eggs points to about half a pint (10 fl oz British, so roughly 1 1/4 US cups) rather than a full pint; a full pint with only 2 oz flour would be little more than sweetened milk. The batter should have the consistency of thin cream.
- The baking timeThe instruction reads "1 hour", but the time note at the foot of the entry has lost its fraction in printing, and something nearer half an hour suits small cups. Popovers of this size are usually brown and set in 25 to 35 minutes.
- A hot ovenTake that as 425-450F (220-230C). High heat is what turns the liquid in the batter to steam fast enough to inflate the puff; a moderate oven gives flat, eggy custards.
- Don't open the doorThe single thing that decides success. The puffs are held up by steam pressure until the crust sets, so leave them alone for at least the first 20 minutes.
- The cupsDeep, straight-sided cups work best — a popover pan, dariole moulds, or a deep muffin tin. Grease them well with butter and get them hot before the batter goes in. Half full is correct; the batter roughly triples.
- New milkSimply fresh whole milk, unskimmed. Whole milk gives the best rise and browning; skimmed makes a paler, tougher puff.
- Beating twiceBeating again just before baking is not fussiness — the flour settles and the batter needs the air. Some cooks prefer to rest the batter 30 minutes for a more tender crumb, then whisk it up again.
- Yield and servingSix puffs, so one or two each as a light pudding. They sink quickly once out of the oven, so butter, sugar and serve at once.
German puffs belong to the large family of batter puddings common in English cookery from the eighteenth century onward — much the same flour, egg and milk mixture that becomes Yorkshire pudding under beef, popovers in America, and any number of small "puffs" when baked in little cups and sugared. The German attribution is loose: eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English cookbooks attached national labels to dishes freely, and what "German" was meant to signal here is not clear. The average cost is given as sixpence for six — two eggs and a little flour, stretched by heat and air into something that arrives at the table looking generous.