I first made Yorkshire pudding a couple years ago when the Tour de France raced through Yorkshire province in England. Yorkshire pudding, as you can see in the picture above, is nothing like the pudding we’re used to in the states. Instead, it’s more like a combination of muffin and dinner roll made with equal parts flour, egg, and milk and seasoned lightly with salt and ground black pepper as shown in the ingredients picture below.

You can, however – and I always do – pump up the flavor with other ingredients like the garlic powder, grated Parmesan (or any) cheese, Italian seasoning, and Balsamic vinegar as shown in this picture.

There are two keys to this very easy and incredibly versatile recipe.

1. In order to get Yorkshire pudding’s signature crisp outside and moist inside, you have to heat a muffin tin with a teaspoon of oil in each of the muffin holes at high heat until the oil starts to smoke before adding the batter.

2. You can’t open the oven door while the puddings bake or they won’t rise – and they really do rise without any leavening, which is very cool to see!

Click any picture on this page for a complete, easy to follow step-by-step picture book recipe.