30 Minute Small Batch Popovers, or a Savory Dutch Baby

Now that the weather is turning colder, we're back to cooking a lot of soup.  On a busy night, I often wish for something I can put together quickly to go with the soup.  Enter the popover. I have a quick small batch (6 popovers) recipe to share. When I use a muffin tin for popovers one of my main frustrations was that my popovers were sticking to the pan like glue, making them impossible to get out in one piece and a real problem to clean the pan. With a little online tip searching and trial and error, I have an approach that really improves this sticking:

• Put a good amount of oil in each muffin cup.  About a scant teaspoon or so.  Multiple trials have demonstrated that cooking spray just doesn't work as well
• Heat the oiled pan in your preheated oven for about 3-4 minutes (until the oil is almost smoking) then swirl the oil onto the sides of the muffin cups by rotating the pan again before putting the popover batter in the cups 
• Take the popovers out of the pan the second you take them out of the oven

This recipe makes 6 muffin-sized popovers:

1/2 C flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 Tbsp melted butter or oil, if desired (I often skip it)
1/2 C milk
1 egg, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 400.  If you have a convection oven, use convection and it will go even faster. Prep your pan as described above. Whisk ingredients together for about 2 minutes (or blend in the blender).  Pour batter into your smoking hot pan.  Bake about 22-25 min on convection, about 28-35 for a regular oven.

Enjoy them with your soup!

Ready for Soup

Sometimes even with greasing the pan well, the popovers still stick, so a Dutch Baby is a good option when you don't want to mess with the individual cups. Here is a good recipe from Bon Appetit:

3 eggs, room temp
3/4 whole milk, room temp
3 Tbsp butter, divided
1/2 C flour
2 Tbsp corn starch
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Place medium cast iron skillet in oven and preheat to 450, letting skillet heat 20-25 min. Blend eggs in blender 1 min, blend in milk, then 2 Tbsp melted butter, then add dry ingredients and blend until just combined. Swirl 1 Tbsp butter in hot skillet to melt, immediately pour in batter so butter doesn't burn. Bake until puffed and brown, 20-25 min.

Make sure your oven racks are far enough apart!

For a smaller batch Dutch baby, try this one, made here in a slightly smaller 8" cast iron skillet:

Smaller batch version of Dutch baby

Update:

Despite trying several methods of greasing in our muffin tin, I was still having real problems with sticking. My father-in-law suggested cooking popovers in greased oven-proof coffee mugs- they didn't stick! Here is the "6 muffin" amount of batter from above in two mugs.

Or, you can use the same "6 muffin" amount of batter in a small (6") cast iron skillet:

1. Preheat convection oven to 400 with skillet in the oven
2. Add butter, then batter
3. Bake about 20-23 minutes, until puffed and golden.

6" Savory Dutch Baby

Dec 2023 Update:

When I was recently at the Nordicware outlet, there was a popover pan on clearance, and it came home with me. The cups on this pan are much larger, so I opted to try a halved recipe from Nordicware's website for the two of us, which made 3 large popovers:

• 1 large egg
• 1/4 c plus 2 Tbsp milk
• 2 Tbsp water
• 1/2 Tbsp melted butter or oil
• 1/2 c flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• dash rosemary (optional)

Place rack in lower 1/3 of oven and preheat to 375. Grease 3 cups of popover pan. Blend ingredients in blender and divide into 3 cups in pan. Bake 40-45 min (or less if using convection).