PJ, I'm glad it works! I think all you'll need to make it foolproof is to set a mixing time, enough to get the batter thoroughly mixed but not to whip up too much gluten. AB's recipe calls for 30 seconds in a blender, and I'm guessing it wouldn't be too much more than that with the power of a mixer's whisk attachment on a medium speed. The whisk or blender gives you plenty of the air bubbles that the steam expands, but too much mechanical mixing would over-develop the gluten even in a loose batter. (Besides, I forgot to notice that the protein you need to get the stretchy rise in popovers also comes from all those eggs!) Room-temperature ingredients aren't that hard -- you can put eggs in a bowl of hot tap water (not any hotter) for five minutes straight out of the fridge to get them where you want, and you can microwave milk for a few seconds to get it warmed up. It doesn't really matter if the milk is "warm" as long as it's not "hot" enough to cook the eggs on contact, just like the melted butter. The less cold the ingredients, the faster the oven can start converting the liquid in the batter to steam for "popping" the popovers. (Cold ingredients have to come up to temperature first, and that foils the process. Hot ingredients would cook the eggs.) The benefit is that if you can get the ingredients at room temperature while the oven heats, these popovers are really like instant dinner rolls, but hollow and crispier and so much easier and faster. I think you can even add all the ingredients at once for easier mixing, but the KA Test Kitchen bakers would have a lot more experience on that than I would about things that could go wrong in such a method. (I'm imagining clouds of flour upon starting the mixer if someone didn't read it carefully, and that's not foolproof!) Once you have the time set the way you want it for the ingredients that produce the taste you like (I'm probably going to use fewer eggs for personal reasons), I think it's foolproof. Is there a prize? I'm not too proud to accept a popover prize for pulling together other people's work. :-) OK, I'll make these again and time everything - thanks, Matt. And yes, you win the prize for sure, for all this research! I'll figure out what the "prize" is ASAP. Maybe I'll send you some popovers in the mail... nah. :) PJH

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