Happened on this popover blog yesterday and, since I hadn't made popovers in quite a while, made them this morning. Started off BAD. The second egg I cracked was rotten. I mean really, really ROTTEN!!! A bit of the liquid had dripped into the milk in the bowl so everything was thrown out; the bad egg banished outdoors pending a trip out to the compost pile. Start over. Oven already heated. Warm milk in microwave, eggs in hot water. Crack eggs one at a time into small bowl. (Good practice all the time!) Popover pan in oven to preheat. (The pan isn't cast iron but looks like it. Has 6 cups.) Made the half recipe using whisk, rather than mixer. Added butter to 4 of the pan's cups then decided maybe I would need a fifth after I started to pour the batter so added butter to another cup. Turned out I didn't need it and didn't want the butter cooked down on the bottom of the cup and added some water to it. (My mother used to do that when she made muffins and the batter ran a bit short.) When the first 20 minutes of high temp baking was done I could see that the popovers were pretty brown. (I have a window in the oven door and with the interior light on, no need to open the oven.) But I turned the heat down, set the timer for about 8 minutes and then went back and peeked in. Jordan Pond House eat your heart out!!! I have made popovers many times in my 60-plus years of baking but never had them 'pop' so magnificently. I have just had a breakfast that will last me all day, complete with Maine wild blueberry jam (and some of my own raspberry jelly). The popovers were quite crispy on the outside. Could that be the result of the steam created by the water I added to the one cup? The same effect that adding water (steam) when baking artisan breads has on the crust? I took some pictures so if you ever get a site set up to receive them, I will forward one to you. HI Carolyn, Glad to hear that after the rocky start the popovers came out great. You are exactly right about the water/steam factor making the popovers crisp. Good detective work. ~ MaryJane

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