Herb Parmesan Popovers

I worked on perfecting this recipe for nearly 3 months! I wanted something I could whip up, that was tasty and different. These have now become a weekend staple at our house.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup flour

1 egg

2 tsp Herbs de Provence (or more if you'd like)

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

1 tsp butter

Cooking spray

Method:

Preheat the oven to 425º F.

Place a six-cup muffin tin on a baking sheet. Spray with cooking spray. Add small pieces of the teaspoon of butter into each cup. Put off to the side.

In a mixing cup. Measure out milk. Add egg, flour, herbs de Provence, and salt. Mix with a small whisk or fork. The batter should be like a thin pancake batter. If your batter is too thick, add a bit more milk.

When the oven is preheated, place the muffin tin on the baking sheet in the oven. Preheat for 2 minutes. This is critical. Don’t walk away! I have. The butter burned and I had to start again.

Remove the tin from the oven. Re-whisk batter and then pour into the muffin tin. Top each popover with shredded parmesan cheese.

Return to oven. Reduce heat to 400º and bake for 25-35 minutes until well browned.

As soon as the popovers come out of the oven, turn them out onto their serving plate or basket and serve immediately.

Notes:

If you don't have Herbs de Provence, you can use any dried or fresh herb you like.

It can be tempting to pull out the popovers when they are golden brown, but leave them in until they are deeper in color, otherwise the middle will not be cooked.

If you aren't going to serve them directly from the oven, turn them out and poke a hole in the bottom with a skewer to let some of the steam out so they don't become soggy.

You can make the batter the night before, cover, and put into the fridge. Take it out the next day at least 1 hour before making the popovers.

You can also make the batter and let it sit while you do other things. And this can be even better. This Christmas I let my batter sit for about 2 hours and the popovers were amazing.

Popovers should be the last thing in the oven before you serve the meal.

These are also called Yorkshire Puddings in Great Britain.

Variations:

• Leave out the herbs and the Parmesan for a plain, but tasty popover

• Add 1/4 cup grated Cheddar cheese to the batter. They may not puff up as much but you get the cheesiness inside.

• Add chili powder or a tablespoon of the sauce from chipotles in adobo to the batter

• Add 1/4 cup chives to the plain batter

• Make plain popovers and then when they come out of the oven brush them with butter and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar