Made Yorkshire Puddings From Scratch
30th December 2022- New Experience Number 41
I’m a little embarrassed to admit that although I’ve lived in York for over half my life, I had never attempted to make Yorkshire puddings.
With eleven new things still to do in order to achieve the goal of trying fifty-two new things by the end of 2022, I decided to give it a go.
The Other Half was born and bred in Yorkshire. I’d always left him in charge of making Yorkshire puddings when we had a roast dinner, as I felt it must surely be in his DNA. He is very good at it too, so why mix up something that was working?
History Of The Humble Pud
Yorkshire puddings are thought to have come about thanks to wheat flour. It became a common ingredient for Yorkshire cooks who used it to make cakes and puddings.
Back in the 1700s, when cooks roasted meat, the fat used to drip off and into a dripping pan. They ingeniously made use of what would have ordinarily been thrown out, by pouring a wheat flour batter into it. In 1737, a ‘Dripping pudding’ recipe was included in a book called ‘The whole duty of a woman’.
A decade later, Hannah Glass published a similar recipe in her cook book, only she renamed it from dripping pudding, to Yorkshire pudding. It’s thought the Yorkshire part of the name came about because the region had a big link with coal. Coal could produced higher temperatures than other fuel at that time. This meant that the cooks making puddings in Yorkshire had a crispier batter than elsewhere.
How Do You Eat Yours?
When I was growing up over the Pennines in Cheshire, Yorkshire puddings were an accompaniment to a roast dinner in our household. They were served on the same plate as the main course.
When I moved to York, I discovered that some people have Yorkshire puddings as a starter, filled with onion gravy. Apparently this tradition from long ago meant the puddings would fill people up so they wouldn’t need as much of the more expensive ingredients in the main course.
I also discovered that some people had them as desserts served with syrup or treacle!
A Simple Recipe To Make Yorkshire Pudding
It’s a very simple recipe with a few staple store cupboard ingredients; eggs, flour and milk.
I beat the ingredients together to make the light fluffy batter and left the mixture to settle. From the many hints and tips I read, letting the batter rest is one of the key elements to a good pud.
According to the Other Half, and countless others I have spoken to, other things that help to make a good Yorkshire pudding are to get the oil in the tray really hot, and to not open the oven door.
Once the oven pinged to tell me it had got to temperature, I took out the oil filled tray I had previously put in. The batter sizzled as I poured it into the hot oil. So far, so good. Now it was a matter of patience as I returned the tray to the oven.
Proof In The Pudding
Peeking through the oven door, things were looking good! I didn’t want to open the door just yet, as I might have put them at risk of loosing their rise.
After another couple of minutes, they were done. They had risen well, were nice and golden, and most importantly, they tasted great!
According to The Royal Society of Chemistry, a Yorkshire pudding is ONLY a real Yorkshire pudding, if it is at least four inches tall, or ten centimetres tall if you’re in metric. That’s a tall pudding! I never measured mine, but in my opinion they had a good rise.
We kept them simple, serving them with gravy.
They were firm and crisp as I cut into them, and had a soft rather than soggy bottom.
We were both happy and full.
Want To Try It Yourself?
- The first Sunday in February is National Yorkshire Pudding Day, so if you’ve never made one before, why not pencil it in to mark the occasion?!
- I followed a BBC Good Food recipe for Yorkshire puddings. There are plenty of other recipes you can follow too. Maybe see if one of your favourite chefs has a recipe
Cost Of Experience
There are only a few ingredients needed to make Yorkshire Puddings. If you regularly cook, it’s likely you’ll already have what you need in the cupboard. If you don’t have the ingredients, they are very cheap to buy, and you’ll have enough to be able to make Yorkshire puddings for weeks on end!
Recommendations
- Be really careful with the hot fat.
- Let your batter rest – that worked for me.
- Try to resist the temptation to open the door when they are cooking. If you’re cooking something else in the oven at the same time, check your timings.
- Don’t be disheartened if they don’t work the first time.
- Don’t forget to take a picture of your Yorkshire Puddings – whether it’s for a starter, main course or dessert!