The perfect popover recipe made with bits of juicy apple. Serve your homemade apple popovers with spiced maple butter for a glorious side dish or treat.
Popovers are a crispy and custardy baked treat made even better with the addition of fall apples and maple butter.
Treat yourself! Popovers only take a few minutes to make and are usually raved about. I mean, your friends and family will think you are Houdini!
Popovers rise to miraculous heights from a simple batter. A special pan, that looks like a muffin tin, helps them achieve greatness. The narrow, tall sides of the popover tins help the batter shoot out the top.
You can make these in a muffin tin as well. They will just look more like muffins!
Make these popovers with apple for a fun twist. Serve them with maple butter spiked with pumpkin spice (who doesn't love that?), and you'll be happy.
Try some of my other apple recipes:
- Spiderweb Caramel Apples
- Pecan Streusel Apple Pie
- Easy Apple Tarts with Blue Cheese and Honey
- Apple Cream Cheese-Stuffed French Toast
- Carrot Salad with Apple and Lime
How to make popovers:
Making popovers is as simple as mixing the batter, correctly adding the batter to a hot, buttered pan, and baking.
I like to make my popovers in a blender. That's right, instead of building my whisking muscles, I let the blender do the work. It creates amazing amounts of air from beating the eggs and that helps the popovers rise.
You'll note in the recipe that I tell you to let the popover batter rest for 30 minutes. This allows the flour to absorb the liquid and everything to meld together. It is the same reason you want to let crepe batter rest. If you use these batters immediately, the texture won't be as soft and custardy.
- Mix together the flour and salt.
- Blend the eggs, milk and butter.
- Mix the flour mixture into the egg mixture and let rest 30 minutes.
- Heat oven and place butter in each popover cup, along with diced apple.
- Melt butter in the pan.
- Add batter to hot pan and bake.
- Eat immediately!
How do popovers rise?
Popovers are leavened by eggs. There are no other leavening agents used in the batter like baking powder or baking soda. This means if cooked on a high heat, the eggs will create pockets of air in the milky batter that will create a huge rise.
If you feel like there's not much to your popover, you've made them right! Popovers are meant to be hollow, or almost hollow. If the rise happens correctly in the oven, the result is a crisp, light shell with custardy soft edges on the inside. Maybe some more substance here and there, but that's about it.
The perfect vehicle for sweet butters and jam.
Are popovers the same as Yorkshire Pudding?
Now that you know a little about popovers I can tell you the difference between popovers and Yorkshire Pudding.
The two are made with a similar batter. Technically the same batter, with eggs, a bit of flour and milk.
Yorkshire Pudding is a savory side and uses beef fat or lard in place of the butter in the hot popover pan. You'll even find beef drippings added to the batter of the pudding as well.
Popovers can be savory or sweet, and are often served with jams or sweet condiments even if they don't have something sweet in them.
Popovers are cooked in individual cups, while Yorkshire Pudding is traditionally cooked in a square or round baking pan. Served almost like a Dutch Baby or German Pancake!
You'll see Yorkshire Pudding baked in a popover pan so it can be served individually too. A savory popover!
The best popover pan
Most popover pans have 6 cups. Those make huge popovers. Delicious, but you end up waiting for another 6 to bake if you have a crowd.
I love using a mini popover pan with 12 cups. To me, this is a standard size.
Serve apple popovers with maple butter
Popovers go with just about anything. A savory salad and salted butter, breakfast, a pot roast dinner, you name it!
I love making these apple popovers and serving them with sweet maple spice butter. It's easy to make, and an excuse to use my apples in the Fall.
The maple butter is easy. Just mix together softened butter, a little pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon, and a few tablespoons pure maple syrup.
Might I suggest doubling the butter? You'll find it delicious on just about everything!
Apple Popovers Recipe with Maple Butter
Ingredients
For Maple-Spiced Butter
- 8 tbsp unsalted butter softened
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
For Apple Popovers
- 1¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ tsp salt
- 1⅓ cups milk
- 4 large eggs
- 7 tbsp unsalted butter (5 tbsp melted)
- 1 small tart apple cored and cut into ⅛-to ¼-inch dice
Instructions
Make Maple-Spiced Butter
- In a small bowl, stir together butter, maple syrup and pumpkin pie spice until smooth; set aside.
Make Apple Popovers
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour and salt. In a blender combine milk, eggs and 5 tbsp melted butter. Blend on medium-high speed 20 seconds. Whisk into flour mixture until just combined. Let stand at room temperature 30 min.
- Meanwhile, heat oven to 450°F and place rack in lower third. Cut remaining 2 tbsp butter into 12 pieces and divide among cups of a 12-cup popover pan. Place 1 tbsp apple into each cup. Just before baking, transfer pan to oven and heat until butter is melted and pan is hot, about 1 min.
- Carefully remove pan from oven and evenly pour batter over apples. Immediately return pan to oven. Bake 15 min (do not open oven). Reduce oven to 375°F and bake until popovers are crisp and browned, 18 to 20 min more.
- Turn out popovers onto a wire rack and let cool 2 to 3 min. Serve hot with Maple Spiced Butter
Notes
Nutrition
Delicious bread and quick-bread recipes
- Sweet and Super Moist Gluten-Free Cornbread
- Homemade Soft and Sweet Cornbread
- Orange Streusel Rhubarb Muffin Recipe
- Quick and Easy Cinnamon Rolls No Yeast Needed!
- How To Make A Soft Fluffy Cinnamon Roll Recipe With Milk Bread
- Pulla Bread - Finnish Cardamom Bread
About Tara Teaspoon
I’ve been in the food publishing business for over 20 years, creating recipes & food-styling for magazines, books, television & advertising. Order my new cookbook & stick around for amazing things to eat.
Recipe Tara Teaspoon, Photography Lisa Hubbard, Food stylist Roscoe Betsill, Prop Stylist Anna Beckman. LHJ 9/08
Karen Rose says
Hi,
If I want popovers without apples...do I just leave them out? Do I have to do anything different to adapt the recipe. Also do I have to make adjustments for high altitude? I’ve had a popover pan for years and never used it.
Thank you, karen
Tara says
Hi Karen, You should have great success making plain popovers simply by leaving the apples out. You still want melted hot butter in the bottom of each popover tin though, so leave that step in the recipe. I have not tested my recipes at high altitude, although they tend to work well without adjustments when I visit high altitude areas. This one should be just fine. You may want to make sure your oven is at the correct temperature by using an oven thermometer. If there is any issue with the recipe it would be because high altitude adjustments call for reducing oven temperature by 25 degrees for some things. Hope that info helps!
Mary says
I'm so excited to try these popovers. They look divine!
Shelby says
I followed the recipe apart from the pan size-I used a regular popover pan because that's all I had. My popovers didn't pop! They were flat and dense and didn't rise. What am I missing?