Apparently, that is what the Great British Bake Off does to a person; since watching batter week, these savoury little puddings have been on my brain, for what is probably rather an unhealthy amount of time. Although I was super tempted to give the lace pancakes a go (so pretty!), I thought I'd stick to something I'm usually pretty good at, and bake some good old Yorkshire Puddings.
WEEK 4: Batter week
SIGNATURE BAKE: Yorkshire Puddings
If you've read my previous blog post, you may be wondering why I don't wash the muffin tin that I bake Yorkshire Puddings in. Now this is the first of two not so closely guarded secrets that I've been taught will ensure a well risen pudding.
The muffin tin itself is nothing special. It's a sturdy, pretty heavy tin, but if I recall correctly it's from Asda's extra special range, or whatever it's called, so nothing special. It's always greasy, and lives permanently in the bottom of the top half of the oven, because we never wash it. I don't really understand it and I'm not sure whether there's any science behind it, but ever since I've been making my own Yorkshire Puddings, that's been the done thing. And they're amazing every time. Tasty, well-risen, and they never stick to the tin.
The second of those secrets, is that you should only ever pour the Yorkshire Pudding batter into hot oil. The immediate heat means that your Yorkshire Puddings will rise in the oven, pretty much regardless of whatever you've done to them beforehand. Tried and tested multiple times, this is the recipe I use, and so far they've been so very good. My only criticism of the recipe is that the Yorkshire Puddings could do with slightly longer to cook, so if you have a go, be brave. The puddings will always look darker in the oven than they actually are, so give them a couple of extra minutes to brown and crisp up; hold your nerve.
As I'd seen on GBBO, and given that I've been desperate for a roast dinner for weeks, I thought it only right that I served a deconstructed roast dinner in a Yorkshire Pudding, much to Harvey's approval of course.
Whilst I was watching the batter week episode, I'd tweeted about how I found it difficult to comprehend how people struggled to get their Yorkshire Puddings to rise, and as soon as I'd published the tweet, I found myself convinced that they would go wrong for me, under the gaze of a camera lens. Fortunately, the Yorkshire Puddings cooked well, despite ignoring my own advice and taking them out of the oven before they'd had a chance to properly brown and crisp up, and there were 4 which were the perfect candidates for being filled with the components of a roast dinner.
Confession time: Harvey served the dinner, and so all of the presentation you're seeing is his efforts, of which I highly approve! I think Harvey secretly loves serving and presenting the dinner, and I adore it when someone presents food beautifully, so I just sat back at that stage, and let him take over whilst I took the photos!
As expected, the dinner was delicious, and it was quite novel to serve a roast dinner in a different way. Not a particularly challenge week from GBBO this week, which was much needed. Harvey's thrilled that the next topic is pastry, as he loves most things involving it, but I'm not a big fan, so I'm hoping for something interesting to have a go at!
Have you got any tips for the perfect Yorkshire Pudding? I'd be super interested to know!
Thanks for reading,
Laura xxx
(P.S. I do apologise for how yellow most of these photos are - it's getting dark so early now, and the lighting in our kitchen is not the kindest! Also, it was very difficult to get a photo of the finished product which isn't blurry because there was so much steam. I could have waited obviously, but ain't nobody got time for that.)
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