Weekender: Sugar & Cinnamon Dusted Popovers
I had planned to make an awesome looking recipe for no-rise cinnamon rolls this weekend, but our modem broke down and I had no access to the internet so that recipe had to be put on hold. Because of the technical failure, I decided to peruse some of my old recipe clippings and found this one by David Lebovitz (in a strikingly odd coincidence, Lebovitz's most recent blog post is on these very same popovers! Go there to get his story) from the March 11, 2009 New York Times Magazine.
As it turned out, I only had two eggs in the house (Lebovitz calls for three), so I started cross-referencing my cookbooks to find a recipe by which my means could accomplish the desired end. I found what I was looking for right away in my trusty copy of How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman.
I adjusted Bittman's recipe slightly. I used the blender method (that Lebovitz uses), which I've used when I've made popovers before (perhaps Marion Cunningham's recipe in The Breakfast Book?). In any case, recipes for popovers are easy to find. Here's what I did:
Popovers
2 eggs
1 TBS melted butter
1 tsp sugar
a good pinch of salt
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
Preheat the oven to 425F. Butter a muffin tin with a dozen muffin cups.
Put everything but the flour into the blender and mix quickly. Add 1/3 of the flour, blend again briefly, add another 1/3 of flour, blend, and the last third, and blend. Pour the batter into the buttered muffin tins, filling them about 2/3 full. Set oven timer for 15 minutes. When the timer goes off, reduce the heat to 350F and set the timer for another 15 mins. When they are done, they should be golden brown and puffy on top. Turn the popovers out onto a cookie sheet. You may need to use a small paring knife to loosen and remove the popovers from the muffin tins.
When cool enough to handle brush melted butter over the puffy prizes and roll in cinnamon sugar. These sugary delights are so easy that I made them again today for tea.
PS Sorry the Weekender is coming on a Monday. We were experiencing modem failure for the last two and half days.
