The premise of the Recipe Redux column in The New York Times Magazine is that a chef tackles an old, dusty recipe from the newspaper's archives and creates something similar, but with more bells and whistles. It's a good premise, although we think that sometimes the 2.0 version is overly complicated—like when a sweet dish very similar to Sara Kate's Big Pancake came out the other end as Moroccan-spiced chicken dumplings. (We just wanted the pancake.) But in this week's column, David Lebovitz gave us a redux that kept all the charm of the original but elevated it to something sublime: the Sugared Puff.
We've given you a recipe for popovers in the past, and they are truly delightful. An eggy batter that balloons up in the oven, giving you a hot, crunchy crust that breaks open to a hollow middle with slightly soft, chewy walls. Delicious.
They're not sweet, although after reading Lebovitz's version, we think they should be always. Because how good does this sound? Popovers, perked up with a little sugar in the batter, that are baked in the same pan (a muffin pan works, too) and then brushed with melted butter and rolled in cinnamon sugar.
Lebovitz describes his sugared puffs as cinnamon doughnuts without all the frying and the heavy filling. The writer, Amanda Hesser, refers to them as "part soufflé, part doughnut, part cinnamon toast." We're calling them our next weekend brunch project.
Has anyone made them? Tell us how they went!
Read the full article and get the recipe:
• Recipe Redux: Maida Heatter's Popovers, from The New York Times
• David Lebovitz's Sugared Puffs
Related: Kitchen Tour: At Home in Paris with David Lebovitz
(Images: Tom Schierlitz for The New York Times)
I haven't made them yet but I plan on it!
view Tiamat_the_Red's profile
I made these this weekend and they are amazing!
http://eatmakeread.com/2009/03/16/sugared-puffs/
view kelly c's profile
I made them yesterday since I had all ingredients on hand (love recipes like this). They were really good and my friends loved them too.
view Nikita's profile
in a word:
YUM.
view my*life*in*a*box's profile
Thought they were quite good and easy to make.
True confession though: I'm more likely in the future to just poke holes in a tube of refrigerator biscuits, fry them up, and roll them in cinnamon and sugar.
Oh so wrong, but oh so good.
view Indy Jeffrey's profile
Indy, my mother does that. She quarters refrigerator biscuits, bakes them, dips them in melted butter and rolls in cinnamon sugar. So, so good. You have to use the cheap kind, though. You know, the ones that pull apart into layers.
view meleyna's profile
I often eat the plain popovers cold with vanilla ice cream - divine!
view Violetsrose's profile
I just made them and they wer/are terrific! BTW: I used part milk and part leftover double cream instead of milk and butter nad the result was just fine.
view plch's profile