The Real Reason Your Popovers Keep Deflating - Mashed (2024)

FAQs

The Real Reason Your Popovers Keep Deflating - Mashed? ›

A. If your popovers lose volume when they come out of the oven, they are probably underbaked. When these airy baked goods aren't cooked enough, too much steam stays trapped inside. That moisture condenses once they're removed from the oven, causing them to collapse.

According to The Boston Globe, popovers that are under-baked retain too much steam inside the bread. This steam helps them puff up beautifully when baking, but if the bread is removed before the steam has time to cook out it will condense again. This is why you see popovers fall even after you think they're done.

Why? Room temperature ingredients mix together to form pockets of air, which when baked result in a higher rise. If you want your popovers to rise high, let your ingredients come to room temperature before mixing.

Preheating your oven to the correct temperature is probably the most important thing you can do to ensure popover success. The hotter your oven, the higher your popovers will rise. Which makes sense: the faster liquid in the batter turns into steam, the more chance your popover has to expand before its crust sets.

My biggest tip for creating perfect popovers is to use warm milk and room-temperature eggs with absolutely no chill on them. Do not take the milk and eggs from the fridge and use them. Cold ingredients will give you dense popovers. Warm ingredients will give you light, airy, and perfect popovers.

If you plan on serving the popovers immediately, remove them from the oven, and stick the tip of a knife into the top of each, to release steam and help prevent sogginess. Slip them out of the pan, and serve.

Let batter rest for 15 minutes while you preheat the oven. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F and place rack in the bottom third position (to make room for tall popovers and to ensure the tops don't burn!) and another rack in the top position.

Because popovers rely on steam to rise — as opposed to baking powder, baking soda, or yeast — you want your batter warm when entering the oven. This King Arthur Flour article says it best: “The warmer your batter going into the oven, the more quickly it'll produce steam: simple as that.” Use room-temperature eggs.

Popover pans are designed to convey heat directly to the batter, which is quite wet. As the batter bakes, that heat turns the moisture into steam, causing the popovers' dramatic rise. The deep cups of a popover pan give the batter plenty of room to rise, and provide support for the sides of the popovers as they do so.

Bread Flour or All-Purpose Flour: The key to making these popovers super light and fluffy is to use bread flour. Bread flour contains a higher amount of protein than all-purpose flour, causing it to yield a much lighter and fluffier popover.

Is it necessary to poke the popover when it comes out of the oven? ›

Remove from oven:

Popovers lose their crunch if they linger in the pan, so turn them out on a wire rack immediately and poke a small opening in the side of each with a paring knife to let the steam escape.

What happens to popover that has not been baked long enough? it will collapse when you take it from the oven. exterior will be soft, not crisp.

The difference between popovers and Yorkshire puddings is that Yorkshires use the beef fat (the drippings from a beef roast). These popovers are a bit lighter in flavor and you can also prepare them before the roast is even done.

If your popovers lose volume when they come out of the oven, they are probably underbaked. When these airy baked goods aren't cooked enough, too much steam stays trapped inside. That moisture condenses once they're removed from the oven, causing them to collapse. The perfect popover, however, is easy to master.

Dense popovers (either from not rising or not getting nice hollows inside) can result from a couple things but usually it is by either not starting with room temperature eggs and milk, not preheating the popover pan, not using a quality popover tin, and/or making too thick of a batter.

The container forms the steam released in the oven heat into one giant bubble. This steam is contained with gluten from flour proteins, starch, and protein from eggs. So the popover literally 'pops' with steam, but the steam doesn't escape because the stretchy protein holds it inside the batter.

There can be a few different things that can mess up the rise of popovers. Preheat the oven to 425 with the pan preheating in the oven. When baking don't open it again until they're done. If you open the oven door the temperature inside can drop too quickly and the popovers will not rise properly.