Quiche Pastry

[misgabi]

I usually make my quiche with a "mix in the saucepan" pastry of equal amounts milk and butter and flour added to form a 'pastry' (this looks similar to playdough).

Being a grown-up now (and that pastry, even after being blind baked being just a tiny bit moist) would like a recipe for your best ever quiche pastry.

Thank you in advance!!

[chef koo]

do you like it flaky and crisp or with more of a bite and a bit more density?

[snowangel]

Over in RecipeGullet, there are several recipes for Pie Crust.

[andiesenji]

I often use a recipe from Nick Malgieri's How to Bake. However, I often decide to prepare quiche at the last minute and find it is easier to use filo/phyllo sheets, I use 8 to 10 sheets, brushing each with melted butter before adding the next layer, and after fitting it in the pie plate, simply trim the edges with scissors.

I love the crisp, flaky crust this produces.

[R Washburn]

I usually make a cheese pastry crust with (IIRC) Gruyere cheese (85g), butter (112g), all-purpose flour (185g), 3/8 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp baking powder, 1/2 Tbs vinegar and 2-3 Tbs ice water.

The recipe is from Rose Beranbaum's Cheddar crust recipe in "The Pastry Bible", substituting Gruyere for cheddar and ommitting the cayenne pepper. Essentially it is a cheese straw recipe.

[misgabi]

Thanks for these.

I like a flaky pastry the best and am intrigued by the idea of using a cheese straw pastry! Will give it a go.

I have tried the phyllo pastry idea in the past and sometimes use it if I have it in the fridge but usually make quiche as a spur of the moment thing with what is in the fridge so was looking for a pastry to use when no phyllo there.

[russ parsons]

the absolute best pastry crust i've found is in the bouchon book. i'm a really bad pastry guy, but this one always turns out perfect.

[malarkey]

the absolute best pastry crust i've found is in the bouchon book. i'm a really bad pastry guy, but this one always turns out perfect.

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YES, I'm glad you posted this. The pate brisee recipe in the Bouchon cookbook ROCKS and IMO is the best one I've ever had. Don't worry about rolling it out thinly, you want it to be fairly thick. It will be flakey and delicious AND the bottom won't get soggy.

[Marlene]

the absolute best pastry crust i've found is in the bouchon book. i'm a really bad pastry guy, but this one always turns out perfect.

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I've got this book, so I must try this. I think I'm the world's worst pastry maker! It never really occured to me to turn to Bouchon for pastry.

[srhcb]

I like to use a "short" (crisp cookie-like) crust for quiche. Here's a real quick, easy one:

Mix together 1 1/2 C AP Flour & 1 t Salt

Beat 1/2 C Vegetable Oil & 2 T Milk

Mix wet & dry ingredients with a fork and press dough along sides and bottom of pie plate with your fingers

Blind bake at 425 for 12-15 minutes

SB (substitute part whole wheat flour or cornmeal and/or add cheese powder if desired)

Edited January 14, 2006 by srhcb (log)

[Ling]

I also use the Bouchon recipe, but the cheese straw recipe sounds really interesting! I'll have to try that next.

[melmck]

Pate brisee, plain and simple. I sell a ton of quiche!

[Mayur]

Pate brisee, plain and simple, is pretty much what the Bouchon recipe is. (Some tips added, including the rather indispensable one of avoiding pure butter pockets in the dough, since those cause major structural integrity problems.)

[prasantrin]

I wasn't sure if I should ask this here or in the stupid questions thread, but...

Would it be such a bad idea to use puff pastry as a quiche crust? It's much too hot and humid in Japan to be making pastry, but puff pastry is readily available in my neighbourhood grocery stores. I'm going to use the filling recipe from the Bouchon book.

I was going to poke the crust with a fork a few times (but not all the way through to the bottom), then line with pie weights and par-bake, then fill and bake. Sound OK?

[Swisskaese]

I wasn't sure if I should ask this here or in the stupid questions thread, but...

Would it be such a bad idea to use puff pastry as a quiche crust?  It's much too hot and humid in Japan to be making pastry, but puff pastry is readily available in my neighbourhood grocery stores.  I'm going to use the filling recipe from the Bouchon book.

I was going to poke the crust with a fork a few times (but not all the way through to the bottom), then line with pie weights and par-bake, then fill and bake.  Sound OK?

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I have used puff pastry a number of times and it always turns out fine.

[prasantrin]

I have used puff pastry a number of times and it always turns out fine.

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Thanks! I just bought another pack of puff pastry today, so hopefully tomorrow will be quiche-making day! I'm making spinach and feta quiche (with maybe a bit of aspargus thrown in, since i have some).

[Swisskaese]

Sounds delicious. I used puff pastry for my spinach and ricotta pie. Bread making and pastry making are definitely a challenge in very hot and humid weather. I have the same problem here. Especially since I don't have central air/heat in my flat.

I wish they sold ready-made flaky pastry here like they sell in England and The States.

Edited June 26, 2006 by Swisskaese (log)

[Patricia Austin]

I use yeasted puff pastry (croissant dough) which is popular. There is a fair amount of crust which soaks up some of the egg mixture, but isn't soggy at all. For me, the yeasted puff bakes through to the bottom better than straight puff.

So many choices . . .

[Qui]

the absolute best pastry crust i've found is in the bouchon book. i'm a really bad pastry guy, but this one always turns out perfect.

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can somebody post the Bouchon recipe on here, I don;t have the book. Thanks!

[nicolekaplan]

the fauchon quiche is pretty rockin as well, wish i knew the secret

[prasantrin]

I made my quiche a couple of days ago. It's good, but I prefer a pate brisee crust. I did have a couple of problems, but they were probably of my own making.

First, there was a lot of puffing around the rim of the quiche. I think I shouldn't have left so much overhang (as the original Bouchon recipe suggests having). It doesn't seem to work as well with puff pastry, though perhaps if I had remembered to poke it a few times with a fork, it might not have puffed quite so much.

Second, the bottom of the crust was quite soggy. That may in part be due to my forgetting to heat the milk/cream mixture before adding it to the eggs (so my filling was more akin to just baked eggs rather than custard), and perhaps in part to my short pre-filling baking time.

Third, I did parbake the crust. I baked it for about 15 minutes with pie weights, then took the pie weights out, filled the crust, and baked. With the pate brisee crust, you're supposed to bake with the weights, remove them, then bake for a bit longer without filling. Then you add the filling. But after 15 minutes at 375, the rim of the crust was getting quite puffy and brown, so I thought it would be better to fill it rather than bake it longer. Was that a bad idea? If I had baked it a bit longer without the weights, I'm guessing the bottom would have crisped up a bit more. But wouldn't it also have puffed more, too?

Finally, I only made 2/3 the recipe for the filling because my pan is smaller than required. I thought my proportions were OK ( 4 eggs, 1 1/3 cups each of cream and milk, as opposed to the 6 eggs and 2 cups each of cream and milk), but maybe I screwed them up somehow?

Oh, I also forgot that my milk was not 3.8% but 1%! Easy to forget in Japan, since 1% milk is not often found. So that might have affected the filling, which in turn affected the sogginess of the crust.

Here are the pics...it was still tasty, regardless of how it looks!

[Swisskaese]

I looked at the recipe I use for spinach and ricotta pie and I do not prebake the puff pastry. I place the dough in the pie pan, fold the edge over and crimp as I would regular pie dough.

It is baked at 180C/350F for 40 minutes.