Bug and I have been reading The Magic Faraway Tree for the last six months or so. Anyone who has traveled through the pages of Enid Blyton’s creation with Joe, Beth, and Frannie will know about Pop Cakes. A creation from Silky the Fairy, Pop Cakes are described as follows:
She brought out a tin of Pop Cakes, which were lovely. As soon as you bit into them they went pop! and you suddenly found your mouth filled with new honey from the middle of the little cakes.
The Enchanted Wood, pg 26
The children continue to snack on PopCakes throughout the series and after that amazing description how can you not want to try them. We tried a couple different recipes after doing a bit of research online. The first was an effort and a half. It took prep-work and the result was….meh. Not bad. But while I know The Magic Faraway Tree in fictional I also noticed that Silky whips up these delights at the drop of a hat. I also wanted something smaller than a cupcake. The kids always pop the cakes in their mouth so I imagined they’d be only one or two bites. So when I found a recipe that called for five ingredients and was done in 25-30 minutes, that ticked all my boxes.
We’ve tweaked it a bit (as I am want to do) but overall it’s very similar to a recipe from www.inliterature.net with a few alterations. Here is the final recipe below. Enjoy!
Recipe: Pop Cakes
Makes: 12 Pop Cakes Cooking time: 20-25 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1 large egg
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1/4-1/2 cup of honey
Equipment:
- 12 piece popover pan
- ice cream scoop
- whisk
- small bowl
- syringe
- Preheat your oven to 230 C or 450 F.
- Grease the inside of your pans. I use coconut oil but you can use butter and it works just as well. (I guess that counts as 6 ingredients. Oops!). Then place your pan in the oven. I place mine on a cookie sheet so it’s easier to pull in and out.
- Combine flour & salt. Slightly warm milk and then add to flour. Now beat in the eggs until JUST mixed. I tried using an immersion blender to speed things up. DON’T do that. If you over mix the batter it won’t rise.
- Once mixed distribute evenly between the pans. Mine only came up to between 1/4-1/3 full (that’s ok. We’re not making full-sized popovers).
- Bake Pop Cake 15 minutes then turn the temperature down to 175 C or 350 F for another 5-10 minutes or until golden brown. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN before the Pop Cakes are done.
- Let the Pop Cakes cool a few minutes.
- Using the syringe pull 5 ml or 1 tsp of honey out of the jar. Our honey was slightly creamy so I warmed it up a bit but if it’s too hot it’ll melt into the cakes. Then squirt the honey into the center of the Pop Cake. Best served warmed and eaten while reading The Magic Faraway Tree.
Enjoy! And let me know how it goes!
*I’m not a Popover expert. Some of our Pop Cakes were pretty wonky looking. We’re more of a focus on taste family (this also helps me avoid an OCD breakdown!).
