Yorkshire lass makes Toad-in-the-Hole

Toad in the hole is traditional English fare and especially for a Yorkshire lass like me, as the main constituent of this dish is Yorkshire pudding batter. The recipe itself is very simple. All you need to remember if you want to make top notch Toad in the Hole (or Yorkshire pudding come to that) is:

- the thinner the tin the better as you need it to get very hot very quickly

- the batter should be no thinner than double cream

- the oil/dripping needs to be very hot before you pour the batter in

- high quality sausages are essential (some people prefer to take the skins off
 the sausages for this dish) 

I have wanted to make this dish for a while and when I saw a recipe for mini-Toad in the Hole I knew it'd be a winner for a relaxed dinner party.

Don't worry, you can eat several of the mini ones each -  they just look rather lovely and it elevates this earthy dish making it more quirky and dinner party-friendly.

This is another Lorraine Pascale special, but I have tweaked it in places where I found I needed to, to make it a little more time effective. So...

Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F), Gas Mark 6. Oil a muffin tin (TopTip! Get one of those low fat oil sprays-1 or 2 sprays per section sorts it out ASAP). If possible, use a metal tin, not one of those silicone ones - they should be ok at 200°C but I found that they make the batter taste plasticy.

Put the sausages (18) in an ovenproof dish and cook in the oven for 25–30 minutes, then set aside. Put the muffin tin in too (empty, to get it good and hot).

For the batter:

Whisk 2 eggs in a large bowl until frothy. 

In a separate bowl, put the 115g flour and 1tsp mustard, then make a hole in the middle.

Gradually add 150ml soured cream and 150ml milk.
Mix together lightly.

Add the eggs and stir a little to combine, then leave the batter to stand for 30 minutes or so (but if you didn't have time to do that like me, it made no difference at all).

Add 1tbsp cider to the batter, stir for 10 seconds, then pour the mixture into a measuring jug (makes it so much easier to pour). Divide the mixture among the muffin holes (it makes around 12) then put 3 sausage halves into each hole, sticking up with the uncut side down. Cook in the oven for 20–25 minutes, or until puffed up and golden brown. 

My toads in their holes
ready to come out of the oven

Remove from the oven, leave for 1 minute then bang the tin on the surface to loosen them from the holes. Serve with gravy - if you cook some onions in the tin at the beginning with the sausages, you can easily make lovely onion gravy that'll be flavoured by the sausage fat. 

From 'Cooking made Easy'

Eee, it were reet grand.