Eating From the Ground Up

buttermilk popovers

by

I feel like you either know about popovers or you don’t.
I guess, like most of this stuff, it could be a bit more complex. Maybe your mom made them when you were little, but they feel like a mystery to you now. Or maybe you’ve had them and loved them, but you’ve never made them, and they seem like they might be to hard because of all that puffing up.
Or maybe you’ve made them. Maybe you really know about them, and you make them all of the time. Because when you need to make something bready and eggy to serve with your soup or to top with your jam, what else would you make?
If that’s your category, then hooray for you. If you’re checking in for a minute here, procrastinating from whatever work you actually have to do on the computer, then go over to update your facebook status or tweet something or whatever. I’ve got nothing for you here today.
Except, actually, maybe I do, come to think of it.

The thing is, popovers might actually be one of the foods that Joey and I both make. They’re just that good, that it’s a skill we must absolutely both possess.

So this morning, as I stumbled grumpily into the kitchen reaching both hands in front of me in search of coffee beans, Joey announced that he was making popovers. And as I grunted and ground some coffee, he peaked in the fridge and noticed that we were suffering from an overwhelming supply of buttermilk.

What can I say. I’ve been doing a lot of experimenting lately.

The gears in his head started turning, and by the time I’d had my first sip of coffee, he finally had out with it.
“What do you think buttermilk would do to a popover?”
The sip of coffee finally gave me the gift of speech, and I said I thought it would do wonderful things to a popover. After all, buttermilk does wonderful things to everything.

And so it did. Astounding things, really. What this is is really the ultimate breakfast popover. This is not your lentil soup popover or your strawberry shortcake popover. It has a touch more body and whole lot more twang than those. This is the popover that sings with jam, that dances with butter, and that hoorays with coffee.
This is tomorrow morning, on a plate, and it’s going to be a good one, friends.

Buttermilk Popovers

3 eggs
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 ounce butter, melted
scant 1 1/2 cups flour

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Butter a 12-cup or 6-cup jumbo muffin tin. (go jumbo if you’ve got it) Combine all of the ingredients in the blender and blend on high for 30 seconds.
Fill the muffin cups nearly to the top with batter. Put in the oven.

THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN UNTIL THE TIMER BEEPS. DO NOT LET ANYONE OPEN THE OVEN. GUARD THE OVEN DOOR WITH YOUR LIFE.

Bake for 20 minutes, then lower heat to 350 degrees. Bake for 10 minutes more. Remove from the oven, and poke each popover with a fork. Let cool for a few minutes and then serve immediately.

Comments

  1. These sound amazing! I love buttermilk and I love popovers, so this recipe is perfect–can't wait to try it.

    Alana, I started reading this blog a few weeks ago after it was mentioned in the College magazine, and I have really been enjoying your writing and all the great recipes. I believe you and I crossed paths a few times at the Cohns' house, when you were living there and I was babysitting Martha; and Joey and I had sophomore language together, I think. I wished then that I had had the time to get to know you, and after reading your blog I see we do have a lot in common! Too bad we live on opposite sides of the country (I live in Oregon now)…

    –Katy (Christopher) Davis

    • I just started looikng around for a variation on popovers and found this recipe. It sounds heavenly with the cheese and black pepper and there’s a pot of chives growing on the kitchen windowsill. My recipe is one from my grandmother who moved west when she was in her early twenties from Massachussetts back in the early twentieth century. I grew up eating them on the weekends and make them for my own family. I also use a regular muffin tin and they puff up like a chef’s hat. Will definitely try this variation.

  3. I MADE THEM THIS MORNING AND THEY ARE VERY GOOD…I HAD PURCHASED BUTTERMILK AT THE STORE AND WANTED TO USE IT…I DID A SEARCH ON THE INTERNET AND YOUR SITE CAME UP. THIS IS DEFINITELY A RECIPE I WILL MAKE AGAIN.

    • Thank you, Maija! I fixed the typo! And the size of muffin tins is definitely variable- I’ll talk about that more in the recipe for sure.

  5. I have made the popover recipe from your cookbook The Homemade Kitchen twice…and cannot seem to get them right without them sticking horribly. First I used butter, this time I used safflower oil, and greased a non-stick pan liberally. This time I waited a couple of minutes and used a silicone spatula to loosen the popovers…worked a little bit better, but most of them still got mangled on the bottom. Any tips? They taste great at least!

      • Thanks for your response! After getting frustrated, I moved on from popovers to muffins and other goodies from your cookbook– I’ve had it for months and its still my favorite thing to read and cook from! I was thinking about what to make tonight for dinner, and thought of the popovers, and then remembered how I posted this question, and here I am! I think youre right about the non-stick pan, because I think that’s part of it– the muffins in your cookbook do fine in my old fashioned aluminum tin, but stick a little in my non-stick pan. Popovers stuck in both, so its probably time to retire the non-stick pans (theyre all scratched up from my prying at this point) and I’ll try the ones you recommend. Do you think it matters if I use butter or a certain type of oil? Thanks for the help!

  7. I have made these in the past years several times (used jumbo muffin silicone cups) and they were so good for breakfast. I am making a cheesy cauliflower soup and thought of these (because I also have buttermilk in the fridge). I have read both of your books and they are beautiful. Your writing is gorgeous. It makes me want to sit outside in the crisp fall air with a cup of tea or coffee (or warm rum cider drink) and enjoy the wonderful bountifulness our earth has to offer. Thank you. Peace and Love!

  8. These were delicious! Just an option for the others, who like me, have issues with popovers getting stuck to their pans. Years ago I found that the jumbo foil cupcake liners brushed with melted butter work really well. They just need to be set into a normal cupcake pan as setting the foil cups on a flat sheet doesn’t keep the “pop” expansion upward.
    Thank you for sharing this recipe and the backstory.

  9. Tried these this morning and the tops were getting too brown so I cooked them on 450 for 15minutes and then at 350 for 8 minutes. They were not done. I had the rack a little lower than half in my oven. I live in a flat area in the south. Any recommendations? I’d really like to try this again.

    • Hi! Popovers can certainly reveal some inconsistencies in ovens. I’d try playing around with your time- perhaps next time just doing the whole bake at 375 for about 25 minutes. Also, this recipe yields a popover with a very custardy inside, so especially if they were getting brown on the outside- they might have been done! It’s a bit of a different texture than a finished bread.

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