Easy Baking 101

While I enjoying cooking very much, I'll be the first person to tell you that I'm not much of a baker. All of the precision and rigor that went along with being a mathematician (in my former life) never made it into in the kitchen for me; hence my general lack of interest around baking. The freedom to improvise while I create is one of the things that I really enjoy about cooking. Unfortunately, improvising is something that does not work well while baking.

However, there are a few things that I don't mind baking. These baked goods have recipes that are characterized by their simplicity (both in the number of ingredients required and the complexity of the steps) as well as their tolerance for being tweaked due to my general indifference for precise measurements. One such recipe was passed along by my friend Christy, who also gave me the famed wild rice hotdish recipe. Friday night, I decided to pop out a batch of these popovers. Here were the results:

Doc Lampi's Never Fail Popovers

2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup flour, sifted
1/2 teaspoon salt

Break eggs into bowl. Add milk, flour, salt. Mix well with spoon, disregarding the lumps. Fill greased muffin tins 3/4 full. Put into cold oven, set control for 450. Turn on heat and bake for 30 minutes. Success secret is starting with a cold oven and not opening the door to peek. Makes 9 popovers.

Karen mentioned that they looked different from the last batch that I made, but they were equally as good, especially fresh out of the oven. Since the stove was already hot from making the popovers, I actually decided to make a second batch of baked goodness. Once again, it was a simple and easy recipe, one which I first saw mentioned on Slashfood. This second recipe comes from the blog Rasa Malaysia and is a formula for replicating Red Lobster's Cheddar Bay Biscuits.


It's been quite a few years since I last visited a Red Lobster, so I can't attest to their authenticity, but these biscuits, like the popovers, were definitely good eats.