The biggest change that's boosted my success is to move entirely to weight. Weigh your shell-on eggs. The milk weighs %150 of that, the solid fat (butter) %20, and the flour %80. How long I hydrate the flour depends on how hungry I am. By the way, this is your recipe on the assumption of 2oz eggs. I also start with a cold cast iron pan, and start at 450F for 15min and reduce to 350F for 15 more min. I might stretch that a bit longer if the color seems pale. I've used a hot pan to start, but I think it makes the feet too hard even if better shaped. The nice part of this scheme is that it accounts for the wide variation in eggs you tend to see if you're buying right from the farmer or in bulk from a co-op that deals with local farmers. I've had 3oz eggs, and that works out well for five giant popovers, and a more typical 2oz egg will give you about four generous popovers. I think the other things such as sugar, salt, and herbs aren't that influential in the rise, and are more determined by taste, though sugar may affect how the popovers color as they bake. Outside of some sticking when the seasoning on my pan was sketchy, this has been no-fail for me. I hope that claim didn't anger the oven gremlin. Nice point: add 75% (egg weight) additional fluid (water or flat beer) and you get a decent crepe batter. Now you can memorize one and a quarter recipes rather than two.

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