Why can't I mzke Toad in the Hole?!!

[JMAngel1]

Followed a "fool proof recipe" tonight and somehow it came out both burnt and not cooked in the middle. And it did not rise. Clearly I am a fool. I felt like Wendy Craig in Butterflies
I'm usually a good cook but TINH is my nemesis.

My uncle was the king of yorkies. Even in his 80s and almost blind...
Make better before hand. But give it a good whisk right before you cook it.
Cook the sausages first. So oven and pan are very hot.
Where recipe says 1/2 pint of milk, use 1/4 milk and 1/4 water.
Hot oven and hot meat juices are the most important things.

Batter.
Not better.
And now I want yorkie pudding

Always use a tin not a ceramic dish.

You need to let your batter rest - the longer the better. Also when you take the sausages out of the oven - make sure the hob is on to keep the heat in your tin...the hotter the tin the better

I don’t rest my batter, I don’t cook the sausages beforehand, I don’t use water, and sometimes I use Pyrex instead of a tin. I’ve used silicon cake moulds too! Sometimes I even take the yorkie out halfway through cooking to fling the raw sausages in and return it to the oven....yet they always, always rise, toads or no toads.

What recipe is it? I bet it’s your oven and nothing you did or didn’t do.

I didn't know about resting the batter.
One thing I never understand is why it's plain flour and not self raising.
I used tin - got the oil and sausages up to 220 but didn't keep it hot on hob while pouring batter in. There seem to be too many variables!

Now you're just showing off Chankly
It was actually a Mumsnet recipe I found on googling fool proof TITH recipe.
Cup of plain flour, cup of milk and two eggs.

Resting the batter is a myth. You need to get the oil hot ( 240) and pour batter in quickly. You can use sparkling water , mine are fluff and crispy .

Are you pouring the batter around the sausages in the tin, rather than taking it out halfway through cooking the batter?

Neither DP nor I can do this! Every which way and it still either burns, sticks or doesn't rise etc. We call it toad-outside-the-hole when we manage to cook them separately and the Yorkshire is mainly edible or toad-without-the-hole when we've managed to save the sausages. All tips gratefully received!

Cup of plain flour. Half and half a cup of milk and water. 3 eggs.
No need to rest.
Could be your oven, try max heat to heat the pan and oil then turn down after ten mins. Do normal Yorkshires come out OK ?

I don't know why you can't make it @JMAngel1 but if it makes you feel better I can't make it either. My lovely dc used to groan and call it "turd in the hole" :).

The key is hot, hot, hot oil.
Dish can be metal, ceramic or glass.
Batter does not require resting.
Put a thin layer of oil with the sausages in the base of the dish and heat it for at least 10-15 minutes in oven at 180.
Pour the batter in quickly and get back in the oven ASAP.
Do not open the door to check it, regardless of how tempting it may be.
It will come out perfect every time.

The only way I have success is making individual ones in ceramic ramekins.

I use a pirex dish and I use fatty sausages. Cook the sausages for a bit first, get the dish and oil/grease red hot. Then I put the dish on the hob before I put the batter in so the oil is hot enough for it to spit. Then put the batter in and leave it on the hob for the bottom to cook. Then put it back in the oven.

The batter is essentially pancake mix. You need the pan poker hot for a pancake, so in my mind it has to be the same for toad in the hole.

If it makes you feel better, I was in my 30s before I could boil an egg. Despite being able to cook this!

I use this recipe:

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/sams-toad-hole/amp

Lidl sell chipolatas that work well and are tasty.

The secret is keeping the dish hot while you pour in the batter - I put it on the hob to make sure it doesn't cool down while it do it.

Cross posted with @Porgy but luckily we are in agreement 😊

Is your oven thermostat correct? Both burned and not cooked suggests you had it too hot.

This is what works for me - Hot oven, hot dish, hot oil. Then the main thing, in my opinion, don’t bother using exact amounts just 4-5 ish ounces of plain flour, two eggs and enough milk to make the batter to the same thickness as double cream. Getting the right batter consistency is key. Plus do not open the oven for any reason while it is rising!

I make my Yorkies separate, a kind of deconstructed toad in the hole, mainly because youngest DC is so fussy and having it all together would cause a protest, but also because I just can't seem to get it quite right as an all in one dish either!

I use James martins recipe for yorkies, and it is foolproof, and delicious

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/james-martins-yorkshire-puds

my yorkshires are always fab but i’d never managed good toad in the hole until my last make when the recipe said do not use a high sided pan i assume it stops it rising as worked perfectly and had fab rise

I was on a thread here and someone very helpfully shared their foolproof recipe for yorkshire pudding and I've been using it for toad and then I lost it, but the most important thing was to use an oil with a high smoking point, not olive oil and to get the oven as high as you dare.

Also, it was all the same volume of egg, liquid and flour, I think.

I use my normal Yorkshire pudding recipe. Half a pint of milk, three eggs and enough plain flour to make it the consistency of double cream.
Flour works differently depending on the weather so can’t give quantities.

I use a metal tin, cook the sausages for 20 minutes at 200c then increase the temp to 225c and add the batter to the tin. Bake for 25 minutes.

Because it's disgusting and shouldn't ever be made?!

Agree with everyone saying the oil must be hot - it has to sizzle so much when it goes in that you worry about getting splashy burns (that's the barometer I use anyway ).

Jamie Oliver's recipe is the best. Never fail but my little kitchen gets a bit stifey.