A Common Batter is a traditional British recipe, based on Alexis Soyer's recipe of 1854, for a classic flour egg and milk batter that can be used as the base for a Yorkshire pudding, toad in the hole or even a pudding with fruit. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic British version of: A Common Batter.
(click this button to prevent the screen from sleeping so Cook Mode is 'ON')
This is a traditional British recipe redacted from Alexis Soyer's 1854 volume A Shilling Cookery for the People, the first Victorian cookbook for the common man.
Original Recipe
462. A Common Batter.—Put in a basin six good tablespoonfuls of flour, which dilute very slowly with one pint of milk, add one spoonful of salt, quarter that of pepper, beat an egg well in it, if used for a toad-in-the-hole. A little parsley, chopped onions, or a little spice, makes an agreeable change; it will also make nice puddings, if baked alone, or under a joint in a well-greased tin. A Commoner Sort.—For toad-in-the-hole use water, if you have no milk or eggs handy; a little suet, or fat chopped fine, is an improvement.
Modern Redaction
This is Alexis Soyer's cheap Victorian Yorkshire pudding style batter. This can be used as the batter base for a toad in the hole or can be baked by itself to be served as a pudding with roast meat. If you omit the parsley and shallot and add a second egg you can also work in 500g fruit to make this into a dessert pudding. For a more meagre batter, you can substitute all or part of the milk with water, but I would not suggest omitting the egg (in fact two eggs will give a better batter).
Ingredients
6 tbsp (heaped) plain flour
600ml milk
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly-ground black pepper
1 egg, beaten
2 tbsp parsley, minced
1 shallot, minced
freshly-grated nutmeg, to taste
vegetable oil, lard or dripping
Method:
Sift the flour into a bowl, then gradually whisk in the milk until smooth. Beat in the salt and black pepper then add the egg and whisk until completely incorporated into the batter. Stir in the parsley, shallot and grated nutmeg.
You can either make a single large pudding in a Yorkshire pudding or similar square tin or you can make individual puddings in muffin tins. Pre-heat your oven to 220°C then add oil, lard or dripping to the tin (or the bases of the individual moulds) and place in the oven until hot. Take the tin out of the oven, adding the batter (stir it first). Make certain that you fill the tins or moulds no more that 3/4 of the way up. Immediately return the tin to the oven and bake for about 15 minutes, until the pudding is puffy and well rise and is golden brown on colour.
Remove from the oven and serve immediately.
If you are making this in the oven with your roast joint you will need the oven hot before you put your Yorkshire pudding in. As a result you will need to increase the oven's temperature to 220°C 15 minutes before the roast comes out to rest (but the increase in heat will not affect the roast at this stage).
