Savory Sourdough Yorkshire Pudding (American Popover) Recipe

Celebrate Yorkshire Pudding Day with us here on the homestead by making our super easy, overnight sourdough Yorkshire pudding recipe! For those that live in the States, you’ll know them better by their American name: Sourdough Popovers. This is a great way to use up sourdough starter, either active or discard. It’s also a useful recipe if you have a surplus of eggs! Our savory recipe includes fresh rosemary and grated cheese for a delicious dinner side or lunch on the go. 

More Sourdough Recipes for Later

Sourdough Discard Dinner Rolls – 3 Ways

Sourdough Heart Shaped Pizza

Sourdough Ebelskiver (Round) Pancakes

The first Yorkshire pudding I ever had was in a pub in, you guessed it, Yorkshire, England. It was love at first bite as the eggy bread soaked up the pan gravy that topped the roast on my plate. Delicious!

Since then, I’ve had to switch to all sourdough recipes for better gut health and nutrition. Turns out, though, that sourdough Yorkshire pudding is just as good as that original one I indulged in all those years ago.

• There’s even a holiday to honor this delicous food! The first Sunday in February is set aside to honor the noble Yorkshire pudding in the U.K. For us in the States, it’s celebrated on October 13th.

What’s the Difference Between Sourdough Yorkshire Pudding & Sourdough Popovers?

Honestly, there really isn’t much of a difference between sourdough Yorkshire pudding and sourdough popovers, so feel free to use whatever name you’ve grown to love.

Traditionally, Yorkshire pudding was served alongside heavy meat dishes to sop up the juices and gravies that accompany such meals. The functioned as a delicious sponge.

• Also, they are typically baked up in beef tallow, whereas popovers are usually baked in cooking oil.

In the US, we often eat popover with sweet slatherings like honey butter, jam, or whipped cream. However, they can also be made savory with cheese, meat, or egg.

Whatever you choose to call them, these delightful muffin-type breads are all made with:

• Eggs
• Flour
• Milk
• Salt

When we naturally leaven them, we add sourdough starter to culture the flour and help it to rise.

Our recipe also calls for:

• Sharp Cheddar Cheese
• Fresh Rosemary

You can swap for your favorite grate-able cheese (nothing too wet or heavy) and your favorite fresh herb. You may also substitute 1 tsp. of dried herb for the 1 Tbsp. of fresh herb, if you don’t have fresh herbs on hand.

How to Make the Best Sourdough Yorkshire Pudding or Sourdough Popovers

It’s funny how the simplest recipes often end up gathering the most particular methods over the years. Each person feeling strongly that this method or that method MUST be employed or the results will be disastrous. Like, world ending or at least resulting in spontaneous combustion.

If your grandmother shares her method for making Yorkshire pudding with you, certainly follow that. It will be the taste and texture you grew up eaing and loving. For the rest of us who have to labor through this life without native English grandmothers, the following techniques will see you through.

Cold Batter or Warm Batter?

I’ve baked these sourdough Yorkshire puddings both ways and they’re both delicious. I slow ferment my batter in the fridge overnight, so it comes out of the fridge cold.

• If I’m in a hurry, I use cold batter. This creates a slightly more dense, chewy result.
• When I warm the batter to room temperature, the sourdough Yorkshire puddings end up a bit taller and slightly fluffier in texture.

Because the sourdough creates a robust, chewy result either way, I’ve concluded that it doesn’t really matter to me!

This is something to note: A naturally leavened (sourdough fermented) Yorkshire pudding/popover will be more dense than it’s non-leavened counterpart. White flour batters that are baked right away or even chilled overnight, will usually be a bit lighter and fluffier.

• Sourdough changes the texture of most foods! Sometimes, the changes are minimal and other times, they’re very obvious. I would say that sourdough Yorkshire pudding or popovers are somewhere in between.

Also, please note that I use whole wheat flour in my starter, which will always be heavier than white flour with no bran left in the flour.

• If you want super pouffy sourdough Yorkshire pudding, use only white flour and only white flour-fed starter.

For another comparison, the following picture shows a sourdough discard only (no extra flour), cold-batter sourdough Yorkshire pudding baked in 100% beef tallow. It’s dense and saturated in healthy fats, and resembles a muffin.

The other sourdough Yorkshire pudding is made from active sourdough starter that’s been long-fermented and the warmed to room temperature. It was baked in 100% avocado oil, which is also a healthy fat, but this pudding is taller and pouffier inside.

Do I Need an Actualy Pudding Tin or Will a Muffin Tin Do?

Either pan will work great, but a Yorkshire pudding tin will result in taller puddings because the cups are typically taller than regular muffin tin cups.

• You could also use remekins, custard cups, or even an 8 x 8 baking dish for a pudding that spreads out and puffs. (This last option is the most traditional method; the muffin-type shape is a relatively new advent of pudding shape.)

If you’re using a cast iron pan, you MUST preheat the pan with the preheat cycle of the oven. These thick pans are typically preheated with the oven, but I wanted to be sure to mention it with these sourdough Yorkshire pudding/popovers. 

• If you don’t preheat the pan, it will cause a crazy temperature variation when the batter hits it because the pan won’t have had enough time to absorb the heat it needs. A regular baking tin is thin enough that, if you forget to preheat the pan, it won’t make a huge difference.

This is one rule of baking Yorkshire pudding and popovers that nearly ALL recipes agree on – you MUST preheat the pan. It’s true that the resulting pudding is puffier when you preheat, but I’ve forgotten this step before and the result was still delicious.

Do I Need to “Rest” My Batter?

Resting refers to allowing the batter to sit undisturbed for a certain amount of time before baking. Some traditional Yorkshire pudding/popover recipes call for a rest period of half an hour or overnight, whereas others don’t call for any time at all.

Many sourdough discard recipes (of any variety) call for no resting time because they are simply trying to use up discarded sourdough starter. The cook isn’t looking to ferment their dough, only to avoid wasting their starter.

However, in this sourdough Yorkshire pudding recipe, we do call for a resting period so that the sourdough can ferment the grain of the flour. 

1. We suggest an overnight slow ferment in the fridge of around 12 hours.
2. You could also do a room temperature ferment of at least six hours.

With either method, you should cover the batter with an air-tight covering to keep out dratted fruit flies and to prevent the batter from drying out.

By resting, or fermenting, your sourdough Yorkshire pudding batter, you will:

• Increase the rise of the final product.
• Deepen the flavors (no rest recipes are bland – bleh).
• Be able to adapt the recipe to your schedule.

Will the World End if I Open the Oven Door While Baking?

You will read in most Yorkshire pudding and popover recipes that you are not, under any circumstances, to open the oven door while the baking is happening. You’ll read similar instructions for souffle recipes, where it’s actually warrented.

However, with these sourdough Yorkshire pudding/popovers, if you happen to open the oven door while they’re baking, they will still rise. Everything will be fine. No need to panic.

Savory Sourdough Yorkshire Pudding (American Popover) Recipe

If you need a delicious side for your next meal, whip up these savory sourdough Yorkshire pudding/popovers! This is a super simple sourdough recipe that is fermented overnight and in which you can use active or discard sourdough. We’ve added cheese and herbs to increase the flavor and nutrition.

 

Savory Sourdough Yorkshire Pudding (American Popover) Recipe Notes

Mix the ingredients all in one bowl. Avoid over mixing.

Melt the fat in the baking tin while it preheats along with the oven.

You can vary the amount of batter added to each cup, but filling the cups 3/4 full will result in six to seven puddings/popovers.

You can also use other animals fats like duck or pig tallow. Ghee (clarified butter), butter, or high smoke point oils like avocado also work well.

• Remember to preheat the fat with the pan so that it’s nice and hot.

You can sub in any dry cheese that grates up well. Heavy, wet cheeses will result in puddings/popovers that don’t rise quite as high.

Change out the rosemary for any herb you prefer, either fresh or dried. Use 1 tablespoon of fresh, chopped herbs or 1 teaspoon of dried, chopped veggies.

• These puddings/popovers are delicious served hot with butter or even with jam if you’d like an herby, cheesy treat.

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