Gruyere and Black Pepper Popovers

On Wednesday night, I found that I had a lot of the slow cooker beef stew leftover, which was good because the weather was cold and dreary out.  Unfortunately, I didn't have any more honey-whole wheat biscuits leftover to go with the beef stew.  I decided to bake some kind of bread to go along with our leftover beef stew and I decided to bravely attempt making Gruyere and Black Pepper Popovers.  I originally received the recipe from Tasting Table via email way back in September and flagged it to make someday.  I knew that popovers aren't the easiest to make and I've never attempted baking them before.  I was a bit nervous but decided to give it a try.

First, I gathered my ingredients:

• 2 cups buttermilk (original recipe calls for whole milk)
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 ounces Gruyere cheese, cut into 16 small cubes, plus freshly grated cheese for garnish

Next, I preheated the oven to 375 degrees and made sure to have a rack in the bottom third level of the oven.  I placed a twelve-cup muffin pan in the oven to warm while the oven preheated.

In a small saucepan, I warmed the buttermilk over medium heat until it was hot (about 125 degrees) but not boiling.  I kept an eye on the buttermilk and kept stirring it to keep it from curdling.  When the buttermilk was hot enough, I took it off the stove to cool.

I next cut the Gruyere cheese into twelve cubes and set the cheese aside.

In a large bowl, I whisked the eggs with the salt and black pepper until smooth.  I then slowly whisked in the warm milk.  I then added the flour and whisked it until the batter was combined.  The batter looked bumpy, almost like cornbread batter.

I then removed the muffin pan from the oven and sprayed it generously with baking spray.  I poured about 1/3 cup of the butter into each of the muffin cups.  Set a cube of the cheese on top of the batter in each cup.

I baked the popovers until they puffed and turned a deep golden brown, which was about forty minutes.  I anxiously kept checking the oven with the oven light but didn't open the oven door for fear of the popover collapsing.

When the first batch of twelve came out, they had definitely collapsed.  Still, I grated Gruyere cheese over them immediately and plated them.  I couldn't tell if they had collapsed because the cheese was too big or from the substitution of the buttermilk or what.  Still, I tried one and the flavor and consistency was there even if it didn't have a popover appearance.

I had enough batter for about seven more popovers so I put in a new batch.  This time I put smaller cubes of cheese into the batter and allowed the popovers to bake for about thirty minutes.  The popovers came out more puffy the second time around but they deflated a bit by the time I plated them and shredded more gruyere cheese over them.

My first attempt at baking popovers wasn't a success but I wouldn't call it failure since the flavor and consistency were spot on.  I was more than happy to enjoy one (or two or three) of them with the leftover beef stew - even if they were deflated.

Have you ever made popovers before?  Any suggestions on how to keep my popovers from deflating?