A Yorkshire pudding is not a pudding in the American sense. It is a savoury batter — flour, eggs, milk and salt — poured into smoking hot fat and baked until it climbs the sides of the tin and sets crisp and hollow. It is the single most important accompaniment to roast beef in Britain.
Where it came from
Economy. Meat roasted on a spit dripped fat into a pan below, and cooks poured batter into that pan so nothing was wasted. It was first recorded in print in 1737 as “dripping pudding”, and named for Yorkshire ten years later by Hannah Glasse.
Crucially, it was served first, on its own with gravy, as a separate course before the meat. Batter was cheap and beef was not, so a large Yorkshire pudding filled the family up before the expensive part arrived. In parts of Yorkshire this order is still observed, and there is a saying: them that eats most pudding gets most meat.
How it is made
The method is simple and the execution is not. Equal volumes of flour, egg and milk, rested; fat heated in the tin until it is genuinely smoking; batter poured in and the tin returned to a very hot oven; and — the crucial rule — the oven door stays shut. Opening it early drops the temperature and the puddings collapse, and no amount of hoping will bring them back.
A good Yorkshire pudding rises dramatically, is crisp and deep brown at the edges, and is hollow in the middle to hold gravy. A bad one is flat, pale and heavy, and its maker will hear about it.
What it is served with
Traditionally roast beef, and purists maintain that this remains the only correct pairing. In practice Yorkshire puddings now appear with every roast, including chicken and lamb, and outside Yorkshire nobody objects.
Two variations worth knowing:
- Toad in the hole — sausages baked into a large Yorkshire pudding, one of the great British comfort dinners.
- The giant Yorkshire — a single large pudding used as a bowl and filled with stew, roast dinner or mince. A pub menu staple, and considered a bit gimmicky by traditionalists.
The popover question
American popovers and Yorkshire puddings are essentially the same recipe. The differences are that popovers are usually baked in butter rather than beef dripping, and are treated as a bread or breakfast item rather than as part of a roast dinner. If you can make one, you can make the other.