Popovers have kind of a lot going for them, in case you did not know. They are not only visually dramatic and incredibly delish, but their assembly requires only your blender, making them a quintessential “one-bowl” wonder, as it were. They also only call for pantry staple ingredients — no need to run to a specialized grocery store, nor really any grocery store, as long as you have flour and eggs and milk and olive oil (which I know you have . . . ) in the house . . .
Moreover, they are wonderfully adaptable. Check out this gruyere black pepper popovers recipe to see how to add cheese (and black pepper) to them. Now about adding olive oil to popovers: I have been, as some of you may know, partnering with Colavita Olive Oil, on an oil-based baking video series (check out this Instagram video on brownies and this video on cheddar bacon muffins to see the last two episodes) and when I was thinking about what to make and record for this week, olive oil popovers popped (pun intended) into my head.
Popovers are kinda/sorta one of my fave things to make (for all the reasons I mentioned above) and I even included a recipe for one in my cookbook, The Vintage Baker. But I’ve always made them with melted butter, and it hasn’t even ever really occurred to me to make them with oil. But lately I have had oil on the brain (particularly olive oil). Moreover, when a recipe calls for melted butter, I always wonder if perhaps oil could be used in its stead, like one can in muffins or tea cake. The general rule is to use 3/4 as much oil as butter — in other words, if the recipe calls for 1 cup melted butter, you would substitute with 3/4 cup of oil. Anyway, long story short, popovers only call for a small amount of melted butter to begin with — my go-to recipe calls for only 3 tablespoons — and so subbing 3 tablespoons of olive oil seemed like it would be a pretty easy, tasty and workable swap — and it is. Hope you give these cuties a try and if you do not have a popover pan, never fear, you can make these in a regular muffin tin, they just won’t rise quite as high as when made in a proper popover pan. But will they still be beyond yum? You betcha.
Olive Oil Popovers Recipe
Olive Oil Popovers
Ingredients
- 4 eggs at room temperature
- 1 1/3 cups whole milk at room temperature
- 3 Tbsp olive oil preferably Colavita
- 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp fine sea salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 450°F and place a 6-cup popover pan inside of it.
- Combine the eggs, milk and olive oil in a blender and blend for 15 seconds to combine. Add the flour and salt and blend for another 15 seconds, scraping down the sides of the blender, if necessary.
- Remove the hot pan from the oven. Grease it with nonstick spray or brush with olive oil.
- Evenly pour the batter into the cups; each one will be about 2/3 full.
- Bake for 15 minutes and reduce the heat to 350°F and bake for another 15 minutes. Do not open the oven for the entire baking period.
- Remove the popovers from the pan and transfer to a wire rack as soon as you take them from the oven. They should slip out easily, but if they do not, run a small paring knife around the edges of each popover. Jab each one with a small paring knife, to release steam.
- Popovers are best eaten the day they are made and ideally within minutes of being pulled from the oven.
