Quick Sourdough Popovers Recipe [with discard]

These quick sourdough popovers make the most wonderfully comforting treat on a cold winters day. Using simple ingredients, along with your sourdough starter, you can have these golden brown sourdough popovers buttered and in your belly in under an hour! This will become one of your go-to recipes for using sourdough discard!

Sourdough popovers can be made in a regular muffin pan or popover pan. You can make them plain, or add other ingredients and flavors like bacon and corn, cheddar cheese or even jam and cinnamon sugar for a sweet treat. Cinnamon sugar popovers are soooo good (and so much quicker than making donuts).

If you love quick and easy sourdough discard recipes, you might enjoy other no wait sourdough recipes like these sourdough waffles, sourdough zucchini fritters or sourdough pancakes.

What is a Sourdough Popover?

A popover is the American version of a Yorkshire Pudding. Popovers have a golden baked crust with hollow, custardy centers. They are the perfect combination of crisp crust and soft interior.

Yorkshire Puddings are made from a batter made with egg, milk and flour and cooked in the beef fat from a roast. They are soooo good to mop up gravy with!

Popovers are made with butter or vegetable oil rather than the fat from cooked meat, meaning that you can use them as a sweet or savory snack. The popover batter is basically the same as that for Yorkshire Puddings though.

Both American style popovers and Yorkshire Puddings puff up in the oven due to steam - rather than leavening agents like baking soda or baking powder.

Using warm ingredients, preheating the pan and not opening the oven door all give your popovers the best chance to puff up in the oven!

Should I Use Sourdough Discard or Active Starter?

It's really fine to use sourdough discard or active sourdough starter for these popovers. I often use active starter as I always have fed starter on hand, but discard works just as well. The one caveat here is not to use old sourdough discard. If your discard is older, it will be too sour and give these popovers a really unpleasant flavor.

I wouldn't use discard that's more than a few days old for this recipe, especially if you are going to serve them plain with butter and jam.

How To Make Sourdough Popovers

These sourdough popovers are a quick and easy recipe that take just a few minutes to prepare. Most of the time needed is oven time. Make sure you turn the oven on before you start organising the ingredients to give it plenty of time to heat up. Oven temperature is really important for this recipe as it gives the popovers their signature "puff".

1. Preheat your oven to 446F/230C (I'm using a fan forced oven for these).
   
2. Add a little vegetable oil to each muffin hole or popover tin. Place the muffin pan or popover tin into the oven.
   
3. I like to sit my muffin tin in a roasting pan because it makes it easier to remove it from the oven.
   
4. Add all of the ingredients to large mixing bowl and whisk until everything is well combined. It's fine if there are a few lumps. It should be the consistency of heavy cream or thin pancake batter.
   
5. When the oven is at temperature and the oil in the muffin pans is hot, remove the pan from the oven (be really careful as the oil is super hot). Carefully pour some of the mixture into each muffin hole until they're all ¾ full.
   
6. Return the muffin pan to the hot oven and bake for 15 minutes at 446F/230C.
   
7. Now turn the oven down to 410F/210C and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes, or until the sourdough popovers are sufficiently browned.

Tips for Making Sourdough Popovers

This is such a simple recipe, with so few ingredients, that everything needs to be done well to get the best result. Here are my best tips for getting light, fluffy sourdough popovers every single time!

• Make sure all the ingredients aren't cold. You want room temperature eggs and slightly warm milk (I measure the milk and leave it sitting on the counter for a bit before I make these. If it's still cold, a few seconds in the microwave does the trick or you could warm it through in a small saucepan).
  
• Use all purpose flour rather than bread flour to ensure you get the best rise.
  
• Don't worry if your sourdough popover batter has small lumps in it. You don't want to mix it too much or you will get flat popovers.
  
• Don't open the oven door while the popovers are cooking. This will cause them to deflate.
  
• If you'd prefer not to use liquid oil in the oven - or you're baking these sourdough discard popovers with kids, it's fine to pop the popover pans into the oven to heat up and then carefully spray the hot pan with non-stick pan spray or brush with melted butter right before you pour the mixture in.

Flavor Variations

While these popovers are perfect plain there are also lots of other ways to enjoy them. Here are a few flavor variations for you to try:

• add 100g of shredded cheddar cheese to the batter
  
• add 100g of crispy bacon pieces to the batter (along with 100g of cheese as above)
  
• add a teaspoon of your favorite jam to the centre of each popover before you place them in the oven. Dust with powdered sugar when you take them out of the oven.
  
• roll baked sourdough popovers in melted butter and then into cinnamon sugar for cinnamon sugar popovers.

How To Eat Popovers

Popovers are perfect served warm and puffy straight from the oven with a smear of butter. They are a warm and filling snack to fill bellies on a cold day. But if you are looking for other ways to eat them, here are how we enjoy them in our home:

• serve them with this whipped herb butter next to our favorite soup (instead of bread)
  
• perfect for a quick and easy breakfast with this whipped cinnamon honey butter
  
• make mini popovers and add to lunchboxes (these are my kids favorites)

Frequently Asked Questions