In the American camp, the classic popover, which is made in a deep-ish pan with high sides. In the British camp, the “Yorkshire pudding” made of the same dough but in a shallow pan. After my prior post on popovers, I had been advised to try the British version.
I was at my local kitchen store the other day and I decided that I had to try the “Yorkshire Pudding Tin” that was on offer, since there was a “buy two, get a baking sheet free” deal in place. I made my classic popover dough–roughly 2-3 eggs to a cup-cup and a half of milk and a similar quantity of flour. With a tsp of salt. I ran a control experiment by putting the same dough in my custard cups which had the classic popover aspect ratio and had worked for me in the past:
But the “Yorkshire Puddings” performed well:
… and at the end of the day, the British version won because it was easy to get the things out of the baking pan. I popped them fresh from the oven to insert a piece of brie cheese when hot (my favorite popover treat), and they worked perfectly.
As a semi-reformed vegetarian, now pescetarian, you won’t find me eating “Yorkshire Puds” in the classic manner, with gravy and a roast, but you will find me frequently baking “popovers” in my “Yorkshire Pudding Tin” instead of my American “popover cups” which I literally threw away tonight. Have I acclimated to British culture, or does this not count since I don’t indulge in roast meat gravy?
Not From Around Here 
Glad to see you’re acclimating. Yorkshire puds are good, veggie or not, but I don’t associate them with pop-overs.
I made these once back in the US and it was torture to get them out of the baking pan. I’m thinking I may have done something wrong.
I see the British ones have the classic indentation in the middle for the gravy! I bet you could make a good gravy (sauce of some kind at least) starting with vegetable stock.
My grandmother always had the job of making the Yorkshire puds at our house as she always managed to make them better than my mum for some reason.
Those look just great.
NO! NO!
Wait. I’m sorry, easy or not, you can’t call those puddings popovers. The popovers from the custard cups LOOK like popovers, while the puddings look like…well…those pre-packaged strawberry shortcake angelfood cakes you buy for work parties in the summer.
Also, brie inside, YES. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.
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Well, being a vegetarian is all very well in theory, but the flavor of a yorkshire pudding comes from the fat in the pan, and that means… well, you know. We don’t even bother with gravy, most times, the fat gives all the flavor we need (except at Christmas, of course).
If you’re interested, my recipe for puddings is posted at:
http://aprodigaltourist.blogspot.com/2009/05/proof-is-in.html