Jordan Pond popovers have been served on the same lawn in Acadia National Park since the 1890s, which makes them older than the park itself. They arrive enormous, hollow, and steaming, with butter and strawberry jam, and you eat them looking down Jordan Pond at The Bubbles. It is the most touristy thing in Acadia and it is completely worth doing.
Here is how to get one without waiting two hours, and the recipe for when you get home and want them again.
What a popover actually is
A popover is a very wet batter of eggs, milk and flour baked in a hot pan until steam blows it into a hollow shell. No yeast, no baking powder, no kneading. The whole thing is steam. Crisp and golden on the outside, custardy just inside the shell, and almost entirely air in the middle.
If you have had Yorkshire pudding, it is the same idea with a different accent.
Beating the queue at the Jordan Pond House
In July and August the wait for a lawn table can run past 90 minutes, and people burn an entire afternoon on it. The fix is simple and almost nobody does it.
Put your name down first, then go and walk. The Jordan Pond Loop is 3.3 flat miles around the water and takes about an hour and a half, which is almost exactly the wait. You come back to a table with the walk already done. Everyone who eats first then walks does both things worse.
- Reservations are available for some slots and worth taking if you can plan that far ahead. Otherwise it is a waitlist.
- Afternoon tea, roughly 2:30 to 4:30pm, is quieter than lunch and is when popovers are the actual point rather than a side.
- Takeaway exists. If the wait is absurd, you can usually get popovers to go and eat them on the grass without a table.
- Parking fills by 9am. The free Island Explorer stops here from late June through Columbus Day, which is the easy answer.
- It is seasonal. The Jordan Pond House closes for the winter, roughly late October to mid or late May. Do not drive out there in April.
They also do a gluten free version, and the tea is a proper pot rather than a bag in a mug.
The recipe
This is the standard method that gets closest to the Jordan Pond version. It makes 6 in a popover pan, or use a deep muffin tin and accept slightly squatter results.
Ingredients
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 cup whole milk, at room temperature
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon melted butter, plus more for greasing
Method
- Put the empty popover pan in the oven and preheat to 425°F. The pan must be properly hot before the batter goes in.
- Beat the eggs until pale and frothy, then whisk in the milk and the melted butter.
- Add the flour and salt and whisk until just smooth. A few small lumps are fine. Overworking it makes them tough.
- Let the batter rest 15 to 30 minutes. This matters more than people think.
- Pull the hot pan out, grease it fast and generously, and fill each cup about two thirds.
- Bake 15 minutes at 425°F, then drop to 350°F for another 15 to 20, until deep golden and firm.
- Do not open the oven door. Not once, not to peek. The steam escapes and they collapse.
- Serve immediately with butter and strawberry jam.
Where people go wrong
- Cold eggs and milk. The single most common failure. Room temperature ingredients rise far higher. Leave them out an hour.
- A cold pan. The pan goes in the oven empty and comes out screaming hot.
- Opening the door. Worth saying twice.
- Overfilling. Two thirds, not to the brim, or they spill and stick instead of climbing.
Is it worth it?
Honestly: the popovers are good, not transcendent. What you are paying for is a hundred and thirty years of people sitting on that specific lawn looking at that specific view, and that part genuinely is worth it. Go in, order them, eat them outside, and do not expect the greatest baked good of your life.
The view down the pond to The Bubbles is the actual attraction. The popover is the excuse.
Building the afternoon around it
The sequence that works: put your name down, walk the Jordan Pond Loop, come back for popovers, then hike up South Bubble to Bubble Rock to look back down at where you just ate. That is a very good half day and it is roughly how day three runs in our Acadia National Park 3 day itinerary.
For everywhere else to eat on the island, see our guide to restaurants near Acadia.
