Popovers: the savory, the sweet, the delicious

I've been on something of a popover bender recently. For the longest time, every time I tried to make these "simple" (most only have 4-5 ingredients) rolls, I was foiled; they never popped. I was left with dense, depressing results, and I was very discouraged. But this recipe I found on Epicurious for Gruyere popovers finally worked for me. The difference was all in the directions. The baking instructions detail how the milk must be heated and the pans pre-warmed in the oven before the rest of the ingredients are combined, portioned, and baked. I suspect this careful preheating is Rule One for proper popover preparation, and I've just been out of the loop. But now I'm in, and I'm loving these little guys. They're versatile crowd pleasers, and I've tried my hand at both a savory and a sweet variety to show you. The first project I made was the eye-opening Gruyere recipe, and then just this evening I tried a cinnamon and sugar version which also turned out well.

Here are are the main components of the Gruyere popovers. My OCD tendencies come in very handy when I'm baking: by reading the whole recipe first, I could prepare the dry mixture, whisk the eggs, and have the grated Gruyere ready to go, so that once the milk was heated, everything could go together quickly and smoothly without giving the batter time to cool.

All the ingredients in the mix. This is one of those batters that suffer if over-mixed, so the stellar instructions even made a point of assuring me that a few remaining lumps were okay.

I had enough batter for about 18 rolls, and I went ahead and grated about 50% more cheese than the recipe called for, so every portion got a generous topping. Okay, so this is your "before" picture, and here....

...is the after! Perfectly-popped popovers FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE. And the wait was totally worth it. These were amazingly good.

They were a little resistant to come out of the muffin tin, but I think that was mostly because of the cheese. In the future I'll make sure to be extra-liberal when I apply the non-stick spray to the pans beforehand. And the ones that stuck to the pans were natural volunteers for early tasting -- I immediately ate one (...or two) of them as they came out of the pan warm and in pieces. These are 12 of the survivors.

And these savory rolls are natural companions for fruit spreads like this rhubarb-hibiscus conserve I happened to have in my fridge. These would be a great contribution to a potluck or any kind of occasion where classy finger foods were required (I think there should be more of said occasions, for the record). 

So that was Successful Attempt #1, and the Gruyere popover experience propelled me into this next experiment with the sweet variety. 

Here are the ingredients for the cinnamon popovers I made tonight. I did quite a bit of baking for our family's Easter Dinner today, and that tupperware container happens to be filled with left-over streusel that didn't make it onto my chocolate bobka. I was actually going to wait to make these popovers until next week, but that extra streusel was calling to me, and these rolls are seriously so easy to make that I didn't balk at the idea of taking on one more recipe, even though I'd spent six hours in the kitchen the previous day. 

Not quite as organized with the ingredient preparation this time around (I think Saturday burned me out a little bit, so I was feeling less Type-A than usual), and do you see that red ramekin? That's what happens when I realize I'm one egg short for my recipe and I need to find a quick substitute. Thank God for the internet, right? Apparently baking two pies and a sweet bread used up 11 of the dozen eggs I'd fortified myself with on Saturday morning, so I only had one left when my popovers called for two. I subbed a flour/baking powder/oil/water mixture that seemed to be okay.

Like their savory brothers before, these sweet rolls turned out acceptably popped, though maybe not quite as much as the others. I blame the last-minute egg substitution. The recipe called for dusting them with confectioners sugar, but the streusel was a nice replacement. I also may have forgotten the vanilla (#honestyinthekitchen), but I didn't miss it when I did the habitual warm-out-of-the-oven taste test. 

I wish you could smell my kitchen right now. These would be the perfect easy (yet impressive) breakfast for overnight company, and I hope my co-workers are pleased when I bring them in tomorrow to share. Monday morning is always better with cinnamon and streusel, right? Right.