The Best Yorkshire Pudding

For our November Supper Club theme, we had a texture grab bag. We all wrote one down on a piece of paper and drew randomly. Dino drew "fluffy" and at first wanted to do a soufflé. I'm all on board for trying out making one of those, but not for a dinner where we have to travel to someone else's house. So I suggested something that's been on my culinary bucket list for quite a while now - Yorkshire pudding.

I got some Yorkshire pudding tins a while ago and was excited to finally try them out. You can also use a muffin tin if that's all you have.

The recipe wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it would be! You just need to have a bit of patience, because the batter has to sit for a while. I prepared it in the morning for us to cook that evening.

There's a really helpful video here that I recommend watching before you try these out.

We used vegetable shortening in the tins to keep them vegetarian. We were serving them with a really large meal, so we didn't make any gravy to go with them, but that's the way they're traditionally served.

They were super light and fluffy and really tasty! I think they would make a great alternative to dinner rolls for Thanksgiving dinner.

We had some leftover straight from the fridge the next day with strawberry jam, and they were delicious that way as well. Definitely something I'll be making again!

The Best Yorkshire Pudding
About.com

Serves 6

4 large, fresh eggs, measured into a jug
Equal quantity of milk to your measured eggs
Equal quantity of all purpose/plain flour to measured eggs
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoon lard, beef dripping or vegetable oil

Heat the oven to the highest temperature possible, however, do not exceed 230°C / 450°F or the fat may burn.

Pour the eggs and milk into a large mixing bowl and add the pinch of salt. Whisk thoroughly with an electric hand beater or hand whisk. Leave to stand for 10 minutes.

Gradually sieve the same volume of flour (as the eggs) into the milk and egg mixture, again using an electric hand beater or hand-whisk to create a lump free batter resembling thick cream, if there are any lumps pass the batter through a fine sieve.

Leave the batter to rest in the kitchen for a minimum of 30 minutes, longer if possible - up to several hours.

Place a pea-sized piece of lard, dripping or ½ teaspoon vegetable oil into your chosenYorkshire pudding tin, or a 4 x 2"/5cm hole tin or 12-hole muffin tin and heat in the oven until the fat is smoking. Give the batter another good whisk adding 2 tbsps of cold water and fill a third of each section of the tin with batter and return quickly to the oven.

Leave to cook until golden brown approx 20 minutes. Repeat the last step again until all the batter is used up.

Serving Yorkshire Pudding

In Yorkshire serving the pudding is traditionally with gravy as a starter dish followed by the meat and vegetables. More often smaller puddings cooked in muffin tins are served alongside meat and vegetables.

Yorkshire pudding isn't reserved only for Sunday lunch. A large pudding filled with a meaty stew or chili is a dish in its own right.

Cold left-over Yorkshire Puddings make a lovely snack with a little jam or honey.

Yorkshire Puddings do not reheat well, becoming brittle and dry.

Big Flavors Rating: 4 Stars