Royal Society of Chemistry defines perfect Yorkshire pud

For perfect puds...

Stick in oven that's at 180C, then crank the dial to 240C so oven temperature increases as puds cook. 10-12 min is enough.

Missed two vital points!

1. Use the cheapest, weakest flour you can find. If you use strong flour (high gluten), the puds won't make it much past the rim of the dish;

2. Despite comments here, do as little beating of the mixture as possible. The less gluten that's released, the better the result. If you're going to use a blender, stop immediately you've the right consistency.

Oh, and it doesn't have to be animal fat in the pan. Veg fat works fine -- try it with extra-virgin olive oil for a different (and rather nice IMHO) flavour.

If you can get hold of Geo Watkins Mushroom Ketchup, add a little instead of water for a real depth of flavour. If you can't, try a little light soy sauce (but remember to reduce the amount of salt accordingly).

Get thissen out a' kitchen lad

Batter mix? Get outta' road lad...

Tha' needs:

'ot tin (not cleaned) wi' fat smokin'

8 eggs

8 oz flour

pint 'a proper milk

bit a' salt

Stick tin in t'oven as 'ot as it'll go. Put flour in t'bowl, make a well in t'middle wi' a fork. Crack t'eggs into middle and draw in t'flour from edges til tha' gets an even paste. Slowly add t'milk as stirrin'. Chuck in some salt.

When t'fat is smokin' take out tin and add batter. Whack it back in fer abaht 15-20 minutes, an' keep friggin' door shut!

Make sure tha' puts tha' tray low in t'ven, as them buggers don't alf rise!

Add beef an' gravy and tha's got a reet treat there lad.

Jamie Oliver syndrome

Salt, pepper, "worcestershire sauce"? Egg whites? Fucking amateurs! The only thing that'd save your skins in Yorkshire is the guy who recommended the frozen ones.

yanks

I was in my 30's before I discovered that the delicious thingies my mother called Popovers were really known as Yorkshire pudding. My one and only attempt at making them fell totally flat (literally).

(Flames for a hot oven, my probable downfall.)

Life-long Denver resident says...

Add a bit more flour, a little less fluid. Cake recipes commonly add another tablespoon or so of flour to the cup of flour. Since the recipe given is a "until it looks right", leave it just a bit thicker than you would normally.

Or head over to the Pearl Street Mall and find a book on high altitude cooking.

If you think Boulder is bad, try cooking at Leadville (elevation > 10,000 feet!). Relatives there say that recipes need significant changes to work right.

Bartenders in Leadville do not serve flat-landers (that's us, folks) more than 2 beers; saves the effort dragging the idiots out the door.

And that

ladies and gents is why scientists when they are being all scientific like shouldn't be allowed to write recipes. Many thanks to the alternatives provided above, I'll be trying a few in the coming weeks.

Mine's the one with the batter stains on the front.

Mmmmm

All that talk of having yorkshire pudding for pud took me back to my childhood - anyone else had it with golden syrup? Deeelicious!!

@ Anyone who suggests vegetable fat

You can stick it up your arse, that's not a Yorkshire pudding. ANIMAL fat is the only way to go. If you don't like eating meat, go and make up your own vegetarian specialty, but you're not likely to get as much enthusiasm about lentil rissoles as this thread has shown for Yorkshire pudding.

What is it with vegetarians that they have to spend all of their time making cheap knock off vege imitations of meat? Quorn - "it looks just like mince" , vegetarian sausages? IF YOU'RE A VEGETARIAN, WHY DO YOU TRY AND MAKE IT LOOK LIKE ANIMAL PARTS??? Make it look like a carrot or something.

Whew, glad I got that off my chest.

Mine's the one with the raw steak in the pocket

batter mix?

try FANNY BATTER instead.

Yours,

Rude Kid ('Viz' circa 1988)

ps that's UK fanny not 'merican before you all start spitting chunks (of YP possibly)

@ High Altitude

I couldnt agree more.... Canadians seem very receptive and appreciative of a good Yorkshire Pud.

But what I wouldnt do for a good unadulterated proper banger. None of this maple syrup or chilli shite in them. Why do they have to mess about with stuff here? I would also love a good pint of green top milk (remember that????) but thats illegal in Ontario.... and when I buy cream, I want it to say Ingredients: Cream. not the list of other stuff it has here......

@ Rob...

Why would we need to be there....we know it is so good having been there, so we decided to spread the good word and educate all you heathen non yorkshiremen.....

A true yorkshireman doesnt need to get his coat, as thats for southern nancys. And anyway, the world moves around a yorkshireman.....

Recipe for Yorkshire Puds from a Yorkshireman

Take a measuring jug and use equal measures of everything.

If you measure 200ml of Flour then measure 200ml of egg, 200ml water and 200ml milk (blue top is best).

Doesn't matter if you go a few ml over on the eggs.

Add a teaspoon of Vinegar and a pinch of salt and mix the lot together. Leave in Fridge for hour before cooking.

Heat oven to Gas Mark 9, put small amount of fat (goose or lard) into tray(s) and wait until fat smokes. Take batter out of fridge 2 mins before cooking and add a few drops of cold water, mix a few times. Add batter to tray(s), put into over and then turn oven down to Gas mark 7.

Cook for 15 mins or so.

I use this method and get fantastic puds. The Vinegar really does make a difference - If I forget it they never rise as well.

Paris?: She has a couple of well formed puddings.

Puds?

Paris might "eat" some of those. In american slang, a pud is a penis.

The correct recipe

There is no more a single correct recipe for Yorkshire pudding than there is a single correct recipe for pizza, or chili con carne or for that matter any other "peasant" food.

Different parts of Yorkshire have different traditions for the making and consumption of Yorkshire pudding. In our neck of the woods it's a sing;e plate sized, light and fluffy pud per person with gravy as starter. Some like to add onions to the tin before the batter. For preference you should add an extra egg white for each egg in the batter mix to make the finished article fluffier. In other areas the tradition is that the pud is cooked in a single large tray and each person served a slice each. Sometimes these are risen round the edge, sometimes the pud is barely risen at all and is heavier. More like an oven cooked pancake.

The idea of a single authentic recipe is frankly laughable and just goes to show that a bunch of geeky scientists simply can't cope with the real world of human experience.

The correct recipe is the one which produces the result that you like the best.

@Simon

You remember that Yorshire pudding originates from Nottinghamshire? How old are you exactly? The now legendary pud is hundreds of years old.

Some would have you believe it comes from France (Fanny Craddock for one*). While other will tell you that it was introduced to France by the Normans who were of course of Viking descent, and that the Normans who came to France via britain actually took the recipe to France from britain. Then there are those who claim that the recipe is actually a Viking one, and so on and so forth.

Nobody really knows where it came from and many areas of the country have tried to claim it as their own usually on the grounds that "my great, great granny used to make them and she's from Cardiff" or some other solid proof of origin. The same is true of the likes of the Cornish Pasty. The reason they are called Yorkshire puddings is probably down to the Yorkshire tradition of the big pud as starter. Even as a Tyke I don't believe the pud originated here.

And of course discovering the earliest know recording of the recipe would prove nothing. Who is to say that the writer didn't simply copy an already tradtional receipe.

And there are many variations on the receipe, how well the pudding rises depends on the combination of oven and receipe. I have found that moving from a gas oven to an electric fan oven has forced me to modify my receipe for the best product. And then there is the matter of the size of the pudding. Larger puddings must be cooked at a lower temperature or the edge of the pud will burn before it is fully cooked. The perfect pud comes with experience.

I was given the following as a starting point years ago. One or more eggs depending on the desired amount of batter. The same volume of plain, weak flower as egg. The same volume of liquid as egg. Salt to taste.

The liquid is a matter of taste, some like milk, some find water to be better and some prefer a mixture. You certainly wouldn't want to use proper fresh milk without any water, but the watery stuff they sell in supermarkets these days would be OK on it's own.

The very fact that the proportions vary so much from one recipe to the next would seem to demonstrate that the proportions aren't critical anyway.

DON'T cool the batter in the fridge. DON'T use a blender to mix it, do it slowly. And definitely DON'T open the oven door until the puds are cooked.

Paris is a bit of pudding isn't she?

* I can't hear that name without thinking - "Now all your doughnuts will be like Fanny's"

In the style of Gordon Ramsey

- Tescos

- Aunt Bessie's 12 Individual Yorkshire Puds

- Oven

- 10 minutes

- Done

- Fuck

Plain Food for Colourful Folks!

Friends of mine who were married on the Shores of Georgian Bay (she's Canadian, he's Welsh) served then them at their wedding, no-one asked what they were so they're pretty well known.

Never had a problem with opening the oven door (just did it to put the Chicken back into warm).

Now where in the GTA can I get proper (not streaky) bacon and decent sausages?