Filled Yorkshire Puddings

When I was at university, I once had an amazing meal at the Bun Shop, on King Street- aka the pub across the road from the back gate of college. I was with my boyfriend (my ex, now) and we weren't there for any sort of fine dining experience, just to re-fuel, but were very pleasantly surprised by what we had. I can't remember what they called it on the menu but it was a big round Yorkshire pudding, with basically a roast dinner inside it - meat, roast potatoes, veg and gravy. The yorkshire pudding acted as the bowl and soaked up the gravy, and it tasted absolutely delicious. Since then, I've come across similar-looking ready meals but they just aren't as good. So when I saw the theme for this month's Best of British challenge was Yorkshire, I knew I had to have a go at recreating the dish. It's the sort of thing I might have experimented with a few times, until I got the quantities and cooking time just right, but I'm an 'all or nothing' sort of person; I don't have time to faff around with recipes and if it works, it works.. If it doesn't, we either eat it anyway or order takeaway! On the plus side, I was working from home on the day I made this (thank you, Olympic Games creating a hellish commute for Londoners!) so I did have a bit more time to cook something in the oven.

I don't know if there's a way to cook the roast inside the yorkshire or if the Bun Shop cooked all the elements separately, then served it inside the yorkshire. Realistically, if you're going to do a proper roast you can't do it all inside a yorkshire, and would have to cook it first and slice it up. But as I was only making this for two people, I decided to use up some leftover sausage and do a slightly different variation for each of us.

My failsafe Yorkshire pudding recipe involves 2 eggs measured out in a jug, with equal quantities of milk and flour to the eggs, with a pinch of salt of course. I doubled the recipe for this and used four eggs.

As I wanted to make the Yorkshire the bowl that the other food sits in, I used two shallow, round cake tins for the mixture. Here's one of them as it went in the oven:

They rose beautifully, if a little unevenly!

I had already roasted some small chunks of potato and sliced up some leftover cooked sausage, and placed it in the middle of the Yorkshire pudding

My boyfriend doesn't like gravy and I was worried his meal would be rather dry, so I heaped a tin of baked beans on top

I had a selection of vegetables added to the sausage and potato,with gravy over it

Here are our two dinners: not the most attractive photo but a really tasty and satisfying meal!

Apparently Yorkshire puddings can also be served as dessert with a sweet filling - I might have to try that some time!

Even though Karen from Lavender and Lovage points out that Yorkshire is not just about Yorkshire Puddings, I hope she won't mind me entering this into the Best of British Challenge this month!

The challenge is sponsored by the Face of New World Appliances and you can enter up to August 20th.