Popping-Over with Excitement or Agreeable Ovens

Just a quick note to say that I'm fairly Popping with Excitement!

I'm off today on the train to the plane to fly away to land of my childhood for a week with family, friends, and my guitar.


My father and I are driving to the land of the red rocks....TODAY. We are headed to this festival, and I'm certain that that combined with hiking through various arches is going to be an absolutely grand way to spend the week.

No time to chat, really. But being that I'm popping with excitement, I thought it most appropriate to share with you all my latest successful baking endeavor, that is the Popover.
(Ha! Popping..popover...get it?)

I learned about this from Molly on the very deliciously funny blog, Orangette. She wrote this post sometime back about Popovers. Being fascinated with them from the start, I procured and antique-y, used popover pan from the thrift store and tried my hand at them. Unfortunately due to a renter's worst nightmare of an oven that haunted our kitchen while we were living in our tiny little two-level studio on Everett street, they did not turn out. And I will just leave it at that.

Well, okay, a little more detail. They rose fantastically in the oven and then fell in the very last few minutes of baking! It was so sad... And that's ALL I want to say about that, mind you, the rest is simply too painful.

Fortunately I did not give up. These popovers haunted my mind like that oven from Everett street had haunted our apartment. Then I found myself living in a different house with a more agreeable oven and it was clearly time to try again. It was one of those creatively-alive mornings, I got out my can of wondra flour (that had been waiting unopened next to the cream of tarter on the shelf for over a year) and traipsed to the store to get some whole milk, determined to follow Molly's recipe exactly.

And truth be told, thank goodness I did. These are a worthy, delightful and delicious baking adventure. From carefully tip-toeing around and gingerly flicking on the oven light to see their dramatic rise in the oven, to gleefully tearing these buttery morsels apart to expose their pillowy insides...


Oh how delectable that morning was as we spontaneously sat in a light-filled corner with a basket of these, some concord grape jam and each other. Highly recommended. Please visit Orangette using the link above to get your hands on this recipe.