Yorkshire Puddings

As you may have noticed from previous posts I am a bit of a fan of Martha Stewart.  One afternoon the hubby and I were watching some of Martha’s vodcasts when one in particular caught our eye.  He was excited about the Roast Beef, and I was excited by the Yorkshire Puddings.

We really wanted to make the whole feast featured on the podcast, the roast beef, horseradish cream and yorkshire puddings, but at the time we were living in quite a small house making it hard to have many people over for a good old fashioned Sunday roast.

So when we settled into our new house a few months later, this was one of the first things on our agenda to test out the new kitchen.

Since then, the yorkshire puddings have been making a somewhat regular appearance in our house, whether it be at Christmas time (and impressing my English godmother) or just to accompany soup, they have earned the nickname “Yorkie”.

You can find the recipe for the yorkie’s here and it is really simple so you must give it a go.  The recipe yields 20-24 yorkie’s when using a standard muffin pan and if I am making it for just the two of us, I only make one quarter of the batter which will yield 4-6.

The first step is to gather the ingredients.

I am making a full batch here as we had friends over for dinner.  The hubby made Pea and Ham Soup, which was going to be another post but he forgot to take pictures along the way.

Put the flour, salt and pepper into a large jug and make a well in the centre.

Add about 1 cup of the milk and the eggs and then start to whisk from the inside of the well out to incorporate the flour.

Add most of the remaining milk, leaving 3/4 cup for later (it will be used to thin the batter after it has rested). Whisk until it is nice and smooth and there are no more lumps.

Leave to rest for 30 minutes.  As the time nears, preheat the oven and fill your muffin pans with a little oil.  You can also use the drippings from a roast to get some of that meaty goodness into the puddings, but unfortunately for my carnivore husband we only use vegetable oil.

Put the trays into the oven so the oil can get nice and hot.

Check on the consistency of the batter.  It should be similar to thickened cream so use some of the leftover milk to thin it out if necessary, taking care not to whisk as vigorously as you may have before.  I tend to leave my batter a little thicker to yield a more doughy yorkie, but each to their own.

Remove the preheated pans from the oven and pour in the batter, taking care not to splash hot oil.  I pour mine into the middle to try and get the traditional “well” in the top of the cooked yorkie, and sometimes it works, but other times it doesn’t.

Quickly put the pans back into the hot oven for 30 minutes.  This can vary depending on the thickness of your batter and how large you make your yorkies so you may need to test it a few times to see what works best for you.

When cooked, carefully remove from the pan, being very careful of the hot oil, and rest on some paper towel if required.

The inside of the yorkie should be nice and spongy to help soak up the soup/gravy/sauce.

Serving suggestion:  My husband likes to rip them into chunks and put through his soup.