Smart Wife’s Perfect Yorkshire pudding recipe
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Vegetables and Sides | 90 comments
Successful individual yorkshire puddings made in a fairy cake tray
We now have an even better recipe for Yorkshire puddings – these are crisp and keep their shape.
Years ago Smart Wife taught me how to make perfect Yorkshire puddings. I often ruined the joint but our individual Yorkshire puds were perfect every time. Rising like a miniature Tower Of Pisa army, they happily deflected attention away from the teeth challenging meat.
On Sunday, Danny suddenly gets serious at around six o’clock and puts on his King Of Roasts mantle. If he is cooking beef I am invited to be his Queen Of Yorkshire Puds.
There are three key tips:
1. Make individual puds – I use an individual cake/bun/mince pie tray- they rise far higher and tend to keep their shape better than one big baking tray.
2. Make sure that the oil in the pans is smoking before you add the batter.
3. Only use plain white flour.
This Sunday I used a bread making flour – white with the goodness of added grains. Big mistake!
Rather than the usual five inch high puds we got the three inch hovels that you can see in the photo. They flattened as I waved a camera at them. They tasted fine but didn’t have so much hanger appeal.
N.B. December 2 2007: I have experimented with this recipe and had great results using a heavier dish.
Smart Wife’s Perfect Yorkshire pudding recipe feeds 4 or 2 greedy people like D and me – they’re great cold with a slice of ham for breakfast)
| Smart Wife’s Perfect Yorkshire pudding recipe |
- 110g of plain white flour
- 2 medium eggs
- 300ml of chilled milk (we use semi skimmed and I think that Smart Wife probably used full cream)
- 2-3 tablespoonfuls of olive oil/ beef dripping/rape seed oil
- Large pinch of salt
- Sift the plain flour into a bowl. Add the salt.
- Make a well in the centre and break in the two eggs. Gently whisk the eggs into the flour and gradually add the milk. I now use my stick blender to do this and it gives a much better result. Ideally, return the mixture to the fridge in a jug for half an hour to chill. If you don’t have time for that the puds will be fine, just won’t rise quite as much.
- Put a little oil (about 0.5 tsp) in eight wells in the cake tin and put on the top shelf of a preheated oven 220c (200c fan) for ten minutes.
- Quickly whisk your batter and pour onto the hot, smoking oil in the wells in the cake tin. The oil should bubble up around the batter. Speed counts.
- Bake at the top of the oven for 20 minutes, turning the tray around after ten minutes.
- Time the puds to be ready when the joint is just about to be carved so you will serve them at their crispest and best.
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My ex-wife is from Yorkshire so although I enjoy cooking, I’ve always been psyched-out about making Yorkshire puds (her mum made the best I’ve ever eaten), but your recipe emboldened me and blow me down, my first attempt wasn’t too bad. I shall persevere, and thank you.
I’ll e-mail you. Just started to type response and it was way too long!
Hi Pat,
Most of my pals don’t use the same ingredients. There is a version without eggs knocking around the UK. Need I say more.
Hi Sara,
Hot fat is a must. These are so easy, you just have to give them a go. The photo shows my disasters!
Hi Amanda,
My friend Anna has your pampered chef stoneware quiche dish. It is brilliant. Are they now available in the UK?
Hi Micelle,
Armed with a decent recipe these are great. In the olden days in the UK they were served before the meat, with gravy, to eek outthe meat which was served as a separate course.
Hi Pat,
I am so pleased that they worked out for you. Armed with Smart Wife’s recipe, I thought that most Yorkshire puds worked well until various friends started to cosy up and ask for the recipe. Delighted that the recipe worked for you!
Hi Kate,
Smart Wife’s recipe is so easy for Yorkshire puds. Give it a go.
We are lucky that we have wild areas of the garden to nurture blackberries. I tried growing a thornless one once with minimal success. They tasted so bland that they were ripped up after 3 years.
Thanks Fiona!!!!!!!!! They were really super!!!!!! The best I have ever baked!!!! Hubby was well impressed too!!! We had ours with some local organic sausages and onion gravy!!! Just brill!!!!!
Never made these before but you have intrigued me. I’m going to try them this year, diet or no diet!
They look very good! I expect they were excellent with the beef.
Being from the North East originally the whole family is expert at yorkie puds except me. I was always too afraid to make them until I bought a Pampered Chef stoneware muffin pan and make the batter using 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of eggs, 1 cup of milk. Minimal oil is used and you don’t pre-heat the pan – it takes longer to cook than normal but so far it hasn’t failed and I love it that I use less fat.
Thanks for this Fiona – I will remember to have the oil piping hot before adding the batter.
Sara from farmingfriends
Thanks for the recipe Fiona. I have used my step moms recipe and have mixed results. Planing on a roast here on Saturday and was going to buy some frozen puds…. but may now try these!!! Thanks!!
Thank you for this recipe and for the tips … I have been a dismal failure with Yorkshire Pudding. This doesn’t seem so hard. When I try it, I will let you know. I am still envying you those Blackberries!