Mary Berry's Yorkshire pudding recipe is, for many British home cooks, the recipe. It is in Mary Berry's Complete Cookbook, it is on the BBC Food website, and it has been the basis of millions of Sunday lunches. The ingredients are simple. The technique is the entire game.

The base recipe

The classic Mary Berry Yorkshire pudding ingredients are:

  • 100 g plain flour
  • 2 large eggs
  • 225 ml milk
  • A pinch of salt
  • Sunflower or beef-dripping oil for the tin

Whisk the flour, eggs and milk to a smooth batter, season with salt, and rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, ideally longer.

The five tips that actually matter

  1. The oven needs to be at 220°C / fan 200°C / gas mark 7. Yorkshires fail more often from a cool oven than from a poor batter. Get the oven up to temperature before you do anything else.
  2. The fat must be smoking before the batter goes in. Heat the tin with a teaspoon of oil per hole for ten minutes in the hot oven. If the fat is not visibly shimmering and beginning to smoke, the puddings will not rise.
  3. Pour fast, then close the door immediately. The temperature drop when the oven door opens is the single largest cause of flat Yorkshires. Have the batter in a jug, ready, before you open the door.
  4. Do not open the door for 20 minutes. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes without peeking. Peeking releases steam, which collapses the structure.
  5. Rest the batter cold, cook it hot. A cold batter hitting smoking-hot fat creates the steam burst that gives Yorkshires their lift. Room-temperature batter does not produce the same shock.

Common reasons they go flat

Three things, almost always: oven not hot enough, fat not hot enough, door opened too soon. Rule out those three before you blame the recipe.

Toad-in-the-hole and oversized variations

The same batter, in a single large roasting tin with sausages, becomes toad-in-the-hole. The same rules apply: smoking-hot fat, cold batter, do not open the door. Mary Berry's recipe scales linearly; one batch of batter makes either 12 individual puddings or one 25 cm toad-in-the-hole.

Why this recipe lasts

The Mary Berry Yorkshire pudding recipe has lasted because it is unforgivingly written. There are no fancy ingredients, no resting overnight, no whisking until pale. There is just the right ratio, the right temperature and the right discipline at the oven door. Get those three things right and the puddings will rise.