These blueberry popovers are an easy twist on a classic popover recipe. Learn how to make these airy rolls and let warm blueberries burst into a puddle of melted butter while the kid inside all of us licks confectioner’s sugar from their fingers.
To be honest, I never thought we’d be a popover family. The first time I made popovers, they turned into popunders. It was such an epic fail that when I mentioned making them again, years later, my husband was lukewarm about the idea at best.
I scoured the internet and combined a few different techniques before getting these beautiful little popovers – tall, golden brown on the outside and pillowy soft on the inside. A real treat to eat pulled fresh from the oven.
Fun fact: These sweet treats are so popular, they even get their own food holiday. Mark your calendars and celebrate National Blueberry Popover Day on March 10th!
Here are a few of my tips to help you make perfect popovers, every time.
Perfect Blueberry Popovers = Temperature, Temperature, Temperature!
- Temperature. There are no cold ingredients that go into this blueberry popover batter.
The reason you want to work with room temperature – or even warm – ingredients is that it gives the batter a ‘lift’ when it hits the oven. You want your popovers to rise to their full potential before the batter sets. And the more heat you work with from the start, the faster the liquid in the batter will turn to steam and the faster your popovers will rise!
- Temperature. I’ll admit, I sometimes slide things in the oven before it finishes its preheat cycle. There are some things where this isn’t a huge deal: par-baked bread, casseroles, lasagnas. You may have to cook them 5 minutes longer, but it allows you to move on to whatever is next on your list of things to do. This is not one of those recipes. Properly pre-heat your oven. Then, heat the popover pan for 10 minutes or so. Again, heat will help your popovers rise faster, giving you a taller end result.
- Temperature! Oven temperature is the final piece of the puzzle. Blast it and then drop it. And NO PEEKING (that would mess with the temperature). High initial heat and then lower heat after that is the only way I’ve ever made popovers. You may encounter popover recipes that have you cook your popovers at the same temp the whole time they are in the oven.
The recipe you make comes down to your own textural preference. If you want popovers to be crunchier and have a slightly firmer texture, you might experiment with keeping the temperature of your oven at a consistent 450* for the duration of the cooking process. (I can’t vouch for how long to cook your popovers if you decide to tweak the recipe in this way, so just start checking for doneness a bit earlier or seek out a different recipe.)
If you like a slightly less crisp exterior but a pillowy custard interior, then lowering the temp about halfway through the baking time makes sense, and is how this particular recipe was tested.
A Few More Notes on Making the Perfect Popover
- Cold eggs? No worries. Carefully set the eggs into a bowl of hot water and let sit for 5-10 minutes. This is usually the time I take to pull the rest of the ingredients out of the fridge, melt the butter, preheat the oven, and so on and so forth.
- No popover pan? No worries! You can use a muffin pan in a pinch and although it will impact the size and how high the popovers rise, it’ll still be a delicious treat. For best results, I still recommend getting a popover pan if you think you’ll make popovers even occasionally.
- Fill your popover pan, but don’t overfill your popover pan. The batter needs room to climb before it sets. If you think there is a chance you have overfilled the tin, go ahead and place a baking tray on the bottom of your oven because if you have one of those tins that has separate cups for each popover, it may make a bit of a mess before setting. I have a mini popover tin, which is made more like a classic muffin tin, so most spillage for me would occur over the top of the tin. I’ve filled them quite full and never had a problem, but my goal is not to make cooking more stressful for you, so…
- Use a paring knife to poke a hole into the popover as it comes out of the oven, before it has time to collapse on itself (or go soggy on you) by helping it release trapped steam.
- Lift these blueberry popovers from the popover tin – don’t flip them upside down. Because you sprinkle the blueberries over the top of the uncooked batter, flipping them will cause most of the blueberries to spill out onto your counter. (Ask me how I know.) If you’ve properly greased your tin, lifting them out should be easy.
Popovers Vs. Yorkshire Pudding
The oldest known reference for popovers dates back to the end of the 19th century, in 1850. Popovers are distinctly American but take their inspiration from the British Yorkshire pudding and were created by Maine settlers. The two biggest differences between popovers and Yorkshire pudding seem to be cooking fat (popovers get butter while traditional Yorkshire pudding would use beef fat drippings) and pan (American popover pans are deeper and have straight edges while Yorkshire pudding uses a shallower, angled pan that might be more comparable to a muffin pan.).
Blueberry Popover Ingredients
- Flour: all-purpose flour for this recipe.
- Whole Milk (2% will work too)
- Large eggs – Like I mentioned above, make sure you use room temperature eggs for this recipe.
- Butter
- Salt
- Fresh Blueberries: Of course, you can experiment with any fresh berries or other fresh fruit as seasons change!
How to Make Blueberry Popovers
- Add flour to a large bowl.
- In a separate mixing bowl, use a wire whisk beat eggs, whole milk, and salt together. Add egg mixture to flour, stirring until you have a smooth batter.
- Finally, add in the melted butter and stir.
- Let the batter rest for 15 minutes to an hour. I’ve found this step to be crucial to getting a good rise on my popovers. It doesn’t take long, 15 minutes really does do the trick, but you do need to let everything rest while the oven preheats.
- Heat oven to 450 degrees F.
- Set the popover pan (or muffin pan) in the preheated oven for 10 minutes.
- Carefully take the hot pan out of the oven, setting it on oven mitts, and spray with cooking spray to grease.
- Divide batter to fill each popover cup ¾ full. (I usually get 8-9 mini popovers.) Place berries over the tops of each popover, dividing blueberries equally.
- Bake at 450 for 15 minutes.
- Lower oven to 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Do NOT open the oven door while the popovers are baking or you’ll end up with popUNDERS.
- When you take out of oven, pierce with a paring knife to let out steam and avoid collapse.
- Dust tops of popovers with icing sugar and serve with butter and blueberry jam, lemon curd or honey.
Looking for more great brunch ideas? Try this brioche french toast casserole recipe or this super simple peach and almond danish recipe.
📖 Recipe
Blueberry Popovers
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour spooned and leveled
- 4 large eggs room temperature before cracking
- 1 ½ cups whole milk lukewarm (about 125 degrees F)
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoons melted butter cooled slightly
- ½ cup fresh blueberries
- icing sugar for dusting
Instructions
- Add flour to a large bowl.
- In a separate mixing bowl, use a wire whisk beat eggs, whole milk, and salt together. Add egg mixture to flour, stirring until you have a smooth batter.
- Finally, add in the melted butter and stir.
- Let the batter rest for 15 minutes to an hour. I’ve found this step to be crucial to getting a good rise on my popovers. It doesn’t take long, 15 minutes really does do the trick, but you do need to let everything rest while the oven preheats.
- Heat oven to 450 degrees F.
- Set the popover pan (or muffin pan) in the preheated oven for 10 minutes.
- Carefully take the hot pan out of the oven, setting it on oven mitts, and spray with cooking spray to grease.
- Divide batter to fill each popover cup ¾ full. (I usually get 8-9 mini popovers.) Place berries over the tops of each popover, dividing blueberries equally.
- Bake at 450 for 15 minutes.
- Lower oven to 350 degrees, without opening the door, and bake for an additional 8-10 minutes.
- When you take out of oven, pierce with a paring knife to let out steam and avoid collapse.
- Dust tops of popovers with icing sugar and serve with butter and blueberry jam, lemon curd or honey.
Notes
- I make popovers using this Mini Popover Pan I got on Amazon.
- For regular-sized popovers, you will get 6. You’ll want to bake at 450* for 20 minutes and 350 for 10.
- I say this serves 4 assuming you’ll want to devour at least 2 of these for breakfast. If you are serving as part of a larger brunch, you’ll get 8-10 mini popovers.
