Yorkshire puddings: is there anything as satisfying?

My mother, a Yorkshire woman, would occasionally take shortcuts in the kitchen, but not when it came to a roast, and certainly not when it concerned a Yorkshire pudding. She even owned a specific Tupperware shaker for the job: like a plastic cocktail shaker, in 1970s orange colour, with a propellor insert, and a lidded pouring spout. The batter would be prepared in this shaker and handed to anyone foolish enough to pass through the kitchen, and woe betide anyone who stopped shaking before they were so instructed.

I didn’t inherit my mother’s Yorkshire pudding shaker, but I make do with a vigorous whisk and then a short rest. The batter is an incredibly simple one, made of eggs, flour, milk and sometimes water. Using water, or a mixture of water and milk, makes for a crisper, lighter pudding. But to my mind, if you’re going to call something a ‘pudding’, at least some of it needs to be a little squidgy in parts, and I love the richness that the milk brings. My Yorkshires are crisp and golden at the edges, but soft and luscious at their base.

The first written recipe for a ‘dripping pudding’ was in 1737, although it is far older. The pudding would sit below the spit–roasted joint of meat, with the fat dripping on to it. In the mid-1700s, Hannah Glasse wrote about it as a Yorkshire pudding, but the Yorkshire connection is probably spurious. Yorkshire puddings are one of those things – a little like roast potatoes – that are taken very seriously by those who make them. I’m not sure anyone has ever made a Yorkshire pudding without declaring their method of cooking the one true way. But there is something almost all Yorkshire pudding aficionados agree on: the secret to a good rise is to pour the batter into screamingly hot fat.