ENGLISH MUM: never knowingly undercatered

Oh we had such a lovely day yesterday. J and C came up with little C (not to be confused with little C next door - same name, funnily enough). I did a roast beef joint of epic proportions, roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, plus enough vegetables and gravy to feed a small army, followed by the old faithful chocolate brownies, which we had, naturally, with lashings of cream. We then retired to sit in front of the fire, drink wine and talk trash for hours. They’re a great couple as Hubby gets on well with C, who has the same razor wit and makes us all howl. Bliss.

J gave me a beautiful Prada handbag charm that she bought me from Milan, complete with Prada box and Prada ribbon (!!) eliciting an ‘OHMYGOD!’ that had the men chuckling in that benevolent but slightly patronising ‘oh, women are so silly’ way that other halves tend to have. Both, apparently, know when we’re on the phone to the other as the air is peppered with ‘OHMYGOD’ and ‘NO!’ leading them to think that some terrible disaster has ensued. Little do they know these are usually responses to the discovery of a perfect pair of shoes (J had the most fabulous mossy green ones with a little strap across the ankle yesterday), or the reaction to a lovely snippet of gossip. Men. They really have no clue.

Anyhoo, here’s my recipe for the perfect Yorkshire Puddings which I’m not sure I’ve written up before. I’m trying to gather up all the recipes onto one page but still struggling slightly with links and all that other web-bloggery stuff that makes no sense to me. Blonde, see?

The best, fluffiest Yorkshire Puddings ever

4 oz plain flour
2 eggs
10 fl oz milk
Large knob of butter
Vegetable oil

So whack your oven on nice and hot: say 230 degrees which is gas…er…whatever. I appreciate it’ll be slightly less if your roast is already in there, but it doesn’t seem to matter). Grab your muffin tray (or you can get fabulous ones with bigger sized holes especially for Yorkshires) and dollop a glug of oil into each hole (I’m quite generous here because I think it makes for nice, crispy puddings, but you can just put in a teaspoon if you like). Get the tray into the oven now so the oil can get really hot.

Cut a generous slice of butter (say an ounce?) and stick it in a bowl in the microwave to melt. Then, add in the milk (or if you’re a lazy cow like me, just plop the butter into the milk and stuff the whole lot into the microwave). So weigh out your flour, add a nice pinch of salt, and put it in a bowl, add your eggs and whisk it up, adding your (cooled) milk and butter mixture until you have a nice smooth batter. You can do this in advance but I never remember.

Pour the batter into a jug and then pull the muffin tray out on the oven shelf, carefully filling each tray to the top with batter. They should take about 20 minutes and swell up to delicious pillow-like puffiness. This mix also makes wonderful toad in the hole (use a lasagne tin or similar and stick the sausages in with the oil).

Serve with your favourite roast dinner, or leave out the salt and fill with ice cream, drizzling over golden syrup. Heaven in a calorie-laden bowl.