Sunday roast problem

Has anyone else notice the huge difference between Sago's 'wonderful' recipe and Springychicken's 'never fail'?
The proportion of flour to egg is way, way different. One is approximately 50g flour / egg, the other is about 50g flour to 3 eggs.
Ginny says get the fat very hot, rubysong says she puts them in cold.
My mother always cooked hers in a slow oven, nearly everyone else says hot oven.
Truly, this is not a science - the result is completely in the gift of the kitchen goddess.

As Nannarose says YPuds are a gift of the kitchen goddess.
However Mary Berry's recipe works most times in my electric fan oven. Cooking in a gas oven produced much more varied results,

I love auntie Bessies! I hate stodgy pudding, and I love crunchy well risen ones, they suit me and my lack of ability to make decent ones very well.

My mother used to pour the batter into the roasting tin after the joint was cooked. It was delicious.

My mum used to make the best roast beef dinner ever!
But I was a lazy daughter and never helped her so don't have any of her skills to share. (But in my defence she never expected me to help with any chores. She used to say "You'll have it all to do yourself one day!")

If you keep on doing the same you will get the same result. Try something different! There are good suggestions above.

DanniRae

My mum used to make the best roast beef dinner ever!
But I was a lazy daughter and never helped her so don't have any of her skills to share. (But in my defence she never expected me to help with any chores. She used to say "You'll have it all to do yourself one day!")

Better than one of my neighbours who wanted to help in the kitchen but was told 'I am raising you not to be a cook, but to be someone who employs a cook'.
Didn't work - I think de-valuing any skill is rather rude; now my neighbour asks me for advice. And our education / professional standing is about the same anyway!

Use plain flour in the batter. Have he oven at a fairly high temperature, I use 200 and heat the oil and the cooking pan until it’s smoking, then put the batter in. I]gave this tip to a local restaurant who had a problem with their Yorkers and it really does work. Mind you I can’t roast potatoes to save my life but my Yorkies are a dream

The secret is to use a muffin tin as the extra height will make the puddings rise, also a very hot oven and get the fat in the tins piping hot before you put the batter in.

I feel really sorry for Eva Darcy, whose plea for advice re flat Yorkshire puds has morphed into a conversation about the timing of a roast dinner.
What business it of anyone's?
Wish I could help, ED, but I've just chickened out of making toad in the hole for visiting family, including two ravenous boys, as the last time I made it for myself it didn't rise well. No idea why either, as usually get a good rise!

What's in a name? Here in the Frozen North it's by no means unusual for people to have their main meal in the middle of the day and call it dinner. Let's not be snobbish about it. When my parents-in-law were alive, the village where they lived was like a tumbleweed ghost town at midday when virtually everyone was sitting down to their dinner. Old habits die hard...

I use Brian Turners method 1:1:1 - equal amounts of flour, eggs and liquid

Brian Turner Cup Method for the Best Yorkshire Pudding Recipe
1 large cup plain flour.
a pinch of salt.
1 large cup eggs.
1 large cup mixed milk and water.
1 tbsp malt vinegar.
120 g beef dripping, for cooking.

I heard what sounds like a good Yorkshire Pudding hack last week. If you have eggs and/or milk that needs using, make up the batter as normal. Grease muffin tin. Pour batter in tin, about half way up, and freeze. When frozen, pop them out and put in bag to go into freezer. Cook from frozen as and when needed. I haven't tried it yet I don't see why it shouldn't work.

Have you had the fat really hot, not just hot, in the trays for the puddings?

I am no help at all. Never cooked a 'Sunday' dinner....

My mother was a great maker of flat Yorkshire puddings. It wasn't one of her party pieces and she knew it!

In the matter of Yorkshire Puddings, as with most things culinary, my bible is Jane Grigson's English Food. One may range far and wide but it's always where I come back to eventually. She is typically discursive on the subject, and the best bit is the "Prize-Winning Chinese Yorkshire Pudding" which originally from the Hong Kong-ish proprietor of a Leeds Chinese restaurant (we're talking 1960s here). who won a proper Yorkshire Pudding competition in Yorkshire. The recipe as given by the cook calls for

300 ml milk
4 eggs
just under ½ teaspoon salt
dash of pepper
½ teaspoon tai luk sauce
250 g sifted plain flour

Beat everything except the flour together, let them stand for 15 minutes, then whisk in the flour. Heat a roasting pan with some juices from the meat to 230°C, then pour in the batter and leave for 20 minutes 52.2 seconds.

This is all rather tongue-in-cheek. Forget the tai luk sauce, there's no such thing (it's a joke at the expense of Yorkshire pride) and don't worry too much about the precision of some of the measurements. The real secret seems to be lots of eggs.

This has always worked spectacularly for me.

Not that I make roast dinners any more. I find them much too heavy for myself and I'd rather take friends to a good carvery since they can work with decent-sized joints, as well as sparing me the cleaning-up afterwards. But I don't mind making a Yorkshire pudding without the roast now and then.

I used plain flour for Yorkshires for many years and they never came up as well as my mother's who I thought also used plain flour. Mentioned this to her one day and she said she'd always used SR flour! I now also use SR flour and they rise really well when I make 'dinner plate' sized ones but cannot get smaller ones in a baking tray to rise well.

I have, honestly, tried all of these! Even Brian Turner's and Jane Grigson's (I did know about the 'tai luk'!)
I have tried every proportion of eggs to flour mentioned here, I have used milk / water and half of each.
I have tried SR & plain flour, bread flour & soft flour.
I have put into a hot oven usually, but have also tried the 'cold' method.
I have cooked it round the meat - it tastes lovely, but does not rise.
The only method I haven't tried is Yangtze's untried method. Maybe I'll give it go....

And I don't care what you call it or when you eat it BUT I do come from the "pud'n before the meat" tradition (which makes my failures worse....)

PS: realise that I sound a bit obsessed - it is my only continuing culinary failure, which is why I sympathise with EvaDarcy. Will you come back and tell us if any of these work for you?

Me too, Nannarose. My Mother's Yorkshire Puddings (one, large) had to be fought down with a fork before it could be removed from the oven. Crisp and golden, I can see them now.
After trying everything over the years I now buy Waitrose puddings and heat them for five minutes. Not like my Mother's, but easily 100 % better than anything I can produce.

I'm a failure at making Yorkshire puddings. I've tried various recipes.
Are they supposed to be cooked at the top of the oven or in the middle please

Perhaps we could form a support group?

The Yorkshire Pudding Club!

The key to Yorkshire puddings is to make the batter in the morning and refrigerate it. Then put the batter in the tin when the fat/lard is literally smoking hot. You know it’s hot enough when it bubbles when you pour the mixture in. Top of a hot oven and don’t open the door during the cooking process. Oh, and use fresh, fresh eggs.

When you cook the frozen puddings, you heat the oil as per normal and cook at 200 degrees for approximately 15 minutes. To get the puddings out of muffin tin when frozen, dip tin briefly in hot water. Work quickly, they melt. If you try it let us know. I keep forgetting.