I Tried Mary Berry's Secret To The Tallest Yorkshire Puddings, And I'm Never Going Back
On paper, Yorkshire puddings seem almost laughably easy; mix egg, flour, and milk together, pour it into sizzling oil, and wait. Tall, fluffy, oven-roof-hitting wonders should soon appear.
Except it doesn’t always work that way, does it? I’ve had many roast dinner disasters in the past; flat, anaemic pucks of carbs are too easy to make.
In times like these, I turn to Mary Berry, whose scone tips, 15-minute lemon curd recipe, and spag bol secrets have never served me wrong.
I’ve written before about how the Cordon Bleu-trained chef says most of us are getting our batter ratios wrong, so I thought I’d try her version last week – people, I am sold.
It’s all about the eggs
“Mary likes to add more eggs and omit a little milk in her recipe as decades of experience have convinced her this gets the best results,” her BBC recipe reads.
She opts for 225ml of milk to three eggs in her 4.7-starred recipe, or 75ml of milk per egg.
For reference, Nigella Lawson uses 81ml of milk per egg, though Gordon Ramsay cuts it back to 50ml per egg. s
The logic is that eggs trap air and can sustain a rise, while fat can weigh the batter down (Mary opts for skimmed milk in this case; “If you only have full-fat milk, replace a quarter of the milk with water,” she writes).
Even Nigella recommends the adjustment.
So, I took Mary’s wisdom; low-fat milk, and less of it, it was.
And?
And the results were impressively tall and well-risen – and that’s without me “resting” the batter before cooking it, as Mary recommends.
Another mistake I made was failing to “get the oil piping hot” for “crisp” Yorkies, but again, the recipe was forgiving.
If you’re making a roast this weekend, I can’t recommend it enough (I mean, it wouldn’t be like Mary to let us down, would it?).