Garlic herb popovers

If you've never made popovers, you're missing out. They are, for me, like Christmas Eve as a child, minus the roast beef...like yorkshire pudding all over again, minus the pan drippings.They really are so easy and a quick way to make up a little something when you need a bread-y side.A good way to use up eggs and milk too, and while I haven't yet made them with anything other than white flour, I am sure the white flour could be cut with wheat or something for a denser hardier healthier popover.

My popovers come out more like yorkshire pudding, a little heavier and while they do certainly puff like a popover, I feel they have a bit more substance to them. They aren't as pretty as the 'real' popovers, probably due to the fact that I use muffin tins and not popover pans but I'm a firm believer in unitaskers and popover pans are good for nothing more than popovers and therefore they don't belong in my kitchen.

 

Ingredients:
1.5 cups of milk
3 eggs
3 tbs. butter (room temp)
2 pinches of salt (I use kosher)
1.5 cups of all purpose flour
Italian herbs for sprinkling (dried or fresh)
Garlic powder (or you could certainly use fresh minced garlic mixed IN the batter, I would not sprinkle it on top though. It will likely burn)

Preheat oven and pan(s) and an oven proof pan of water to 450 degrees. This will make about 14-16 popovers in regular size muffin tins. While the oven and pan(s) are preheating, mix milk, eggs, salt and room temp butter with an electric mixer for about 1.5 minutes.

Add in flour (the recipe I used that I tweaked called for it to be sifted but I did not) and mix on med-high until smooth.If you prefer to have your herbs incorporated into your batter and/or are using fresh garlic, add it now.

Remove muffin pans from oven and spray with non-stick spray or use the butter wrapper and grease each tin well. Be careful, at this point it will probably be very hot. Fill each tin by 2/3, sprinkle with herbs and garlic and pop back into the oven. After approximately 12 minutes, lower the temp to 350 and cook for an additional 10-12 minutes or until they are as brown as you like them.* We like the edges golden brown and our centers still yellow (but cooked). Remove from oven and cool.

There are lots of variations on this recipe. you could make them for dessert and add a bit of sugar to the mix, top with strawberry sauce and ice cream, go savory and add fresh herbs of a different sort. These go great with stew or soups! 

*I use an electric oven. The original recipe called to cook them 20 minutes at 450, then cook at 350 for 10 minutes. I found that to be much too long because by 12 minutes, they were looking brown, any longer at that temp and they would have burned. Incidentally, I also tweaked the original recipe quite a bit but used it as a general guideline for this recipe that I have posted.