Easy Toad in the Hole Recipe

I love Toad in the Hole, it’s a real winter warmer – and a lot easier to make than you think.

Here’s a “no weighing out” recipe for it, ideal if you’ve not got the inclination or equipment to measure out and weigh out ingredients.  It uses an American scale of cups – a cup is 1/2 a pint and the recipe just requires you to use the same in quantity, without having to know the weights.

This is also a recipe for Yorkshire pudding, if you don’t have sausages!  Or, if you’ve got mince, then why not roll the mince into sausage shapes, or into small meatballs.

I hope you like this Easy Toad in the Hole Recipe:

Makes: 4 servings

Toad in the hole is sausages cooked in batter. It’s a popular winter dish in England, served with mashed potatoes, vegetables and gravy – often onion gravy! It’s not hard to make a perfect Yorkshire pudding and perfect Toad in the Hole every time, if you follow three simple rules.

• The fat has to be really hot/smoking if you dare (I daren’t and mine turn out fine)
• Get the batter mix into the dish very fast so the fat doesn’t get chance to cool
• Don’t open the oven door for 20 minutes

Making a Toad in the Hole is a great budget recipe that kids love – if you can pick up a pack of sausages when they’re reduced then the cost of this meal can be under £1/$2.

Ingredients for Toad in the Hole:

• 4 tablespoons Olive Oil, Any oil you’d usually use for cooking roast potatoes is fine.
• 1 cup Plain Flour, In the US this is called All Purpose Flour. 125grams of flour is 1 cup.
• 1 cup Eggs, 2-4 Medium to large eggs, enough to fill a cup.
• 1 cup Whole Milk, You can use any milk for this, whatever you’ve got. 1 cup is 0.5 pint, or 8 fluid ounces.
• 1 pinch Salt
• 8 Sausages, You can use any sausages at all, my favourites are Cumberland sausages, but you can just use your favourite sausages, or the cheapest ones you can find. For weight, you’ll need about 1lb, or 16oz, or 450grams of sausages.

Method:

1. Turn the oven on, to 450F/230C. Place a large baking dish in the oven with a generous splash of olive oil.
2. Measure out the flour and sift it into a good-sized bowl. You’ll be beating the mix so pick a bowl where you can beat easily and well.
3. Measure out 1 cup of eggs, which could be 4+, depending on the size. If you’re 1-2 short it doesn’t always matter, so long as you have at least 2.
4. Add 1 cup of milk to the flour/eggs and a pinch of salt. Beat the mix until it’s absolutely smooth. It should be the consistency of thick cream or gloss paint. To make it thicker, just add in a bit more flour, to make it runnier, just add in a splash of milk.
5. Once the oil in the dish in the oven is super-heated and smoking, quickly take the dish out of the oven, swish the oil around the dish and place the sausages in the dish, then pour the batter mix over and between the sausages. If you can place the dish on a warm hob while you’re doing this then you’ll get a better result. The key is to keep the fat as hot as possible. Place the dish back in the oven for 20 minutes. Don’t open the door. The Yorkshire will rise up and the sausages will bake.
6. You’ll know it’s ready when the Yorkshire has risen and turned a lovely golden/deep brown – and the base of the Yorkshire mix is set and the top of the sausages are browned. Serve immediately.

Note: Sausages, or any items baked in batter, will cause the batter to not always rise.  The bigger the gap you can get between the sausages the more the batter will rise between them if that’s what you wish it to do.  Personally, I love the “bottom batter” and don’t cook my Yorkshire puddings until they’re very crispy, except the top of the sides being crispy.

Top tip for Yorkshire Puddings: 

I quite often see people saying that they’re following a recipe and doing everything right, but the Yorkshire pudding isn’t rising.  And I’ve spotted why this might be.  While a good recipe for Yorkshire pudding is simple and straight forward – and using the oven is easy – what no recipe tells you is that the size of the dish and the depth of the batter mix are an  important part of the whole process.  So, if you’re having no luck, try playing around with different sized dishes and different depths of batter.  No recipes seem to give these measurements to people!  The batter needs to not be too deep, make sure it comes up to about half way up the sausages if you’re making a Toad in the Hole – and, if it’s just a Yorkshire, then keep that depth/less in mind.

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