Best Ever Yorkshire Pudding Recipe

Now you may think that this tray of charcoal boulders is less than the post title suggests. But you would be wrong.  They are in fact  Perfect Yorkshire puddings. It's just that they've been in the oven about an hour too long! Yesterday was the only normal day of weather we have had around here for weeks, and when I say normal I mean normal mildly wintry sort of day, but not raining,  I repeat in case you live in Somerset and can't believe it, not raining so we were outside plodding about in the mud, talking to people we hadn't seen for ages, enjoying the relatively dry air,  discussing the floods again.
Then I suddenly remembered  the oven. Aarghh!!

Luckily I made the full amount of the recipe, which does two twelve hole muffin size tins, so I was able to quickly despatch this lot to the chicken run, and bung a second lot in the oven,. And this time I stayed in the kitchen till they were done!

Anyway to get to the point, the recipe is James Martin's recipe as demonstrated recently on BBC1 Saturday Kitchen. I've tried many recipes over the years but this is my favourite. I really tried it because I have a million eggs to use up at the moment, all the chickens have decided to come into lay, and this recipe uses 8 eggs or even 10 if you have some tiny pullet eggs like I have. You get a good flavour, and a spectacular rise, which is really the whole point.  I stuck pretty much to the recipe except the first bit, I just measured everything straight into a pyrex jug and mixed with an electric hand mixer until smooth, then put it into the fridge overnight. Make sure the tins are hot, the combination of smoking hot tin and fridge cold batter really makes the difference I think. All in all a great recipe for impressing the in-laws, or anyone else really. And if you must go off down the garden, take a timer with you.

Classic Yorkshire Pudding

Ingredients

• 225g/8oz plain flour
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 8 free-range eggs
• 600ml/1 pint milk
• 55g/2oz dripping

Preparation method

1. Place the flour and a little salt and freshly ground black pepper into a bowl. Add the eggs, mixing in with a whisk, then gradually pour in the milk, mixing slowly to prevent lumps forming.
2. Cover the bowl with cling film and chill in the fridge overnight.
3. Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas 7.
4. Put a little of the dripping in four non-stick Yorkshire pudding tins. Place the tins in the oven until smoking hot.
5. Remove from the oven and quickly fill the moulds with the batter. Return to the oven and cook for 20-25 minutes.
6. Turn the oven down to 190C/375F/Gas 5 and cook for a further 10 minutes to set the bottom of the puddings.
7. Remove from the oven and serve.