Question: My Yorkshire Puddings Won't Rise
A tray of Yorkshire Puddings fresh from the oven should be well-risen, golden brown with a crisp exterior and soft middle. Sometimes, they fail to rise. There may be several reasons why.
Answer:
- Always use equal volumes of egg, milk and plain/all purpose flour, too much flour and the resulting pudding will be heavy and stodgy. Without enough egg, there will be insufficient air beaten in for a successful rise.
- Always beat thoroughly so the batter is without any lumps. Leave the batter to rest in the kitchen for a minimum of 30 minutes, longer if possible - up to several hours.
- The batter must be lump free.
- The oven should be as hot as possible. A successful rise will come from the combination of cold batter going directly in to a very, hot oven.
- Use lard, dripping or vegetable oil in the tin and heat in the oven until the fat is smoking. Never use olive oil or butter. These two fats will never reach a high enough temperature for Yorkshire Puddings without burning.
- Avoid overfilling the tin, a third is usually sufficient. Too much batter and the pudding will begin to rise but soon collapse as they will be too heavy.
- Always give the batter another good whisk adding 2 tbsps of cold water before pouring into the smoking hot fat.
- If possible, avoid using a convection oven as the forced air, if too strong can sometimes cause the puddings to collapse.
- If you can, avoid opening the door during cooking, the cold will make the pudding collapse. Sometimes they make a recovery but never rise quite as high as they should.
- Never wash Yorkshire pudding tins as this spoils the surface of the tins and can prevent puddings from rising. Simply wipe clean with kitchen paper after use.
- Follow my recipe or cooking tutorial for succesful Yorkshire Puddings.
