Mary Berry's 1 Secret Trick For The Best Yorkshire Puddings

By rights, fluffy, oven-roof-hitting Yorkshire puddings should be foolproof. 

They only have four ingredients, after all; eggs, milk, flour, and oil. 

But just like pancakes, which share more or less the same batter, there are a surprising amount of ways to mess the roast dinner classic up. 

I’ve seen carb-y hockey pucks. I’ve seen Yorkies that had ballooned on the top but stayed next-to-raw on the bottom (though secretly, I enjoy that stodge a bit). 

Still, it’s far from the ideal version of the side. So it’s a good thing Cordon Bleu-trained chef Mary Berryis here to help us get it right every time by avoiding a common recipe mistake. 

Which is?

OK, it’s not necessarily an error if most recipes tell you to do it. 

But the former GBBO host reckons way, way too many recipes use too few eggs and too much milk ― making the resulting Yorkshire puddings a little slower to rise.

“Mary likes to add more eggs and omit a little milk in her recipe as decades of experience have convinced her this gets the best results,” the BBC page containing her Yorkies recipe reads. 

She uses only 225ml of milk to three eggs in her version, which has earned a five-star average rating from 260 reviews. 

That 75ml of milk per egg pales in comparison to, say, Nigella, who uses 325ml of milk for four eggs (81ml per egg).

But Michelin-starred chef Gordon Ramsay seems to be a firmer believer in the “less milk, more egg” philosophy than even Mary Berry ― with 150ml of milk for three eggs, he’s only got a scant 50ml per ovum.

Why do eggs help things rise?

They’re really, really good at trapping air and keeping it trapped in a dough. 

That’s a role yeast, baking powder, and other leavening agents usually play.

It’s why prior to the invention of baking powder, one of the only ways to achieve a fluffy sponge without using yeast was by betting the bejaysus out of some eggs for a Genoise-style cake. 

Baking guru Nicola Lamb writes in her book Sift that fats (which milk contains) can weaken “the structure provided by gluten, starch, and eggs” which helps things rise.

Perhaps that’s why Nigella uncharacteristically opts for semi-skimmed in her Yorkeis recipe, and why Mary Berry says, “If you only have full-fat milk, replace a quarter of the milk with water.” 

As Nicola Lamb explains, fat is something of a “Goldilocks” issue for bakers; its effects on bakes are a little contradictory. 

While not as extreme as avoiding oil inyour meringue mix, it seems the ratio of milk fat in your Yorkies may be more important than many of us realise.