How to Prepare and Eat Yorkshire Pudding

Yorkshire Pudding is a traditional side dish most frequently associated with roast beef and other meat entrées. Vintage recipes for Yorkshire Pudding call for "drippings" or the excess fat from roasted meats. But in these days of health consciousness and enlightened eating, there is less meat on the menu and the very notion of "drippings" is, quite frankly, not particularly appetizing.

This is no reason to give up on Yorkshire Pudding. It is too good of a dish to just dismiss as merely a quaint historical culinary footnote. With a little adaptation, it can be updated to fit a modern menu. The basic ingredients of Yorkshire Pudding are among the most modest in your kitchen and preparation is remarkable easy. For those reasons alone, the dish is well worth remembering. Beyond that, it is downright delicious.

One of the initial ways to adapt Yorkshire Pudding is to shift its traditional role from entrée side dish to dessert offering. Actually, it was often served as a dessert in English country homes back in the day, so this shift is not completely revolutionary. The next step in adaptation has to do with the ingredients. Forget the "drippings." Instead, use butter.

Here is what is needed to make the Yorkshire Pudding itself. Toppings and extras will be discussed a little later.

1 cup milk
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 eggs, slightly beaten
4 tablespoons butter

A hot oven is necessary, so preheat to 450 degrees. Mix together the dry ingredients of flour, salt and sugar. Before adding the wet ingredients, get the baking pans ready. Use two bread loaf pans measuring about 9 inches long by 4 inches wide by 3 inches deep. Put 2 tablespoons of butter into each loaf pan. Place these loaf pans into a hot oven so the butter melts, but does not burn. It is important not to let the butter scorch or burn. While heating the buttered pans, add the milk and vanilla extract to the dry ingredients. Mix this into a smooth paste. Then add the slightly beaten 2 eggs and beat with an electric mixer for 2 minutes.