Hi Bold Bakers! As you know we have done a lot of sweet baking here on Bigger Bolder
Baking, but did you know there’s whole world of savory that I want to venture into? A Quiche
Lorraine is something that I learned to make a very young age, and it’s a really great
one to add to your ever-growing repertoire. As always the recipe can be found on BiggerBolderBaking.com
along with all of my other savory recipes, so make sure you check them out. Into a large
bowl we’re going to add in some flour, and salt. Our next important ingredient to make
our pastry nice and flaky is cold butter. I like to cube it up so it’s easier to rub
in with your hands. Then go in with a clean pair of hands and just rub in the butter into
the flour until it resembles kind of coarse breadcrumbs. You want big lumps of butter
and small lumps. Now people always ask me when baking what kind of butter do I use,
and I always use salted because it adds extra flavor, however it is preference so use whatever
you like. There you go so it takes no time at all and this is what it should look like.
Now you can also do this with a dough cutter and that will work well. Okay, so now into
this we’re going to add in our wet ingredients. So here I have a little jug, and I'm going
to add in one egg, and a little bit of water. And then just whisk those two ingredients
together. Now if you do not eat eggs don't worry, you can always just use all water and
that would work well. The egg just makes the pastry that little bit richer. Okay, so now
here's my little tip about adding liquid to a dough or even into a pastry. Don't add it
all in so I'm just gonna add in the majority of it, and I'm gonna keep a little bit aside,
and then I'm gonna mix the dough with my hand, to see if I need that extra bit of liquid.
The thing about it is you can’t take it out, but you can add it in. Just be aware
of that. So my dough could do with a little bit more liquid, so I'm going to add a little
bit more in. And then just continue bringing it together with your hands until it forms
a ball. Perfect. Okay so now what we’re going to do is just cover this in cling wrap,
and now we’re gonna pop it into the fridge for a minimum of roughly around an hour. What
you want to do is just get it nice and cold so the gluten relaxes and it will be ready
to roll out. So in the meantime, let's make the filling for our quiche. Now, it is a typical
custard: it is eggs, cream, a few other ingredients. However, if you do not eat eggs, don't panic,
you can replace the eggs with a chickpea flour and that will thicken and cook out really
well, and I'm gonna put that information on the website. Go ahead and crack your eggs
into the bowl. Next we’re going add in cream. Now you can use any cream for this, it doesn't
have to be whipping cream, so it can be like a table cream or pouring cream, that’s fine.
Add in a little milk. Then we’re going to add some Gruyere cheese, now you can also
use cheddar, any kind of cheese that you like. Swiss would be lovely, Irish cheddar would
be super-yummy because it’s nice and sharp. So in you go. And then of course, one of my
favorites, bacon. Now the bacon is already cooked, nice and crispy. If you don't eat
bacon you can use maybe peppers, onions, whatever you want to put in your quiche, go for it.
Then lastly I'm gonna crack in a little bit of freshly ground pepper, and a little bit
of salt. Just to bring out all of the flavors of everything else. And then with a whisk
just mix it all together. I love quiche. So this is looking good, lovely and thick and
creamy, I'm gonna set it over to one side and check on our quiche crust. So our pastry
is chilled and now we’re ready to roll it out. So just sprinkle your surface with a
little bit of flour, pop on your pastry, and then just roll it out to a nice big circle.
So you want to roll it out roughly around 13”x15” and that'll give you a nice big
circle. Took me a long time of being a pastry chef to get my pastry to actually come into
a circle. You just have to keep working it and moving it. There we go, that's it. So
now what you want to do is just roll it up on your rolling pin, backwards, this takes
a little bit of skill. And then I'm just gonna gently lay it into my dish that has been lined
and buttered. Then just very carefully push your pastry into the edges, and along the
base. Making sure it’s nice and snug up the sides. And as you can see we have a lot
of pastry overhanging, this is perfect. Lovely. This is a really great pastry for like maybe
chicken pie, any kind of a savory pie dish, this is perfect. So I used a 9” cake pan
because I wanted my quiche to be really thick and have a lot of filling, but you can always
use a pie pan, a 9” one, and that will work well too. Okay, lovely. Now we’re gonna
take a little knife, and we’re just gonna trim around the edge of the tin. This will
just tidy it up for us. Okay fantastic. Then you can do this anyway you want, but I like
to crimp it with my fingers. So just go ahead and create nice little kind of scalloped edges
around the rim of your quiche. You can also do this with a fork and that'll work well.
Just something nice and pretty. All the way around. So now our next step is to take a
fork and all you want to do is just prick it on the base with your fork. Now this will
allow the steam to release while it’s baking and it will stop your crust from rising up.
So when making a quiche, you need to blind bake your crust. Now what that means is you
need to pre-bake it before you add in your filling and it just stops you getting a soggy
pastry bottom, and nobody wants a soggy bottom. So I have a square of parchment paper here,
and just push that into your pastry. So here I have some lentils, now you can use chickpeas,
beans, whatever you have in your cupboard is totally grand. Now just pour this into
your pie filling, and what this is gonna do is it’s gonna weigh down the pastry as it
bakes so it will stop it again from rising up. Perfect. So now what we want to do is
just pop this into the fridge and chill it to stop the dough from shrinking as it bakes.
It just needs that little few more minutes to relax. What I like to do is actually pop
it into the freezer for like 10-15 minutes and then you're golden. So my pastry dough
was in the freezer for around 15 minutes, it’s lovely and chilled and ready to be
baked off. So you want to blind bake your crust at 375ºF/190ºC for roughly around
15 minutes. Now you don't want to get it too brown because it will be baked off again later.
So there you go, just a few minutes, our pastry is lightly browned, now very carefully remove
the lentils, remembering that they're hot. Now save those for the next time, put them
in a jar, write beans for blind baking and then you always have them and you can use
them over and over again. So come here to me, I want to show you what you're looking
for. You see the center of the base? It is lightly cooked, it’s not colored, this is
what we want. Perfect. Now this is where the magic happens. I have my filling here ready
to go, I'm gonna pour that in, as you can see it’s a lot of filling, that’s the
way I like it. Make sure you get all your bacony cheesy bits in there. Okay, lovely,
we’re almost there, now our quiche is ready to be baked off. So now we’re gonna bake
our quiche off at a slightly lower temperature oven, 325ºF/160ºC, for roughly 40 minutes.
You want a slight jiggle in the middle. Remember, it is custard. So my timer just went off and
my quiche is ready to come out of the oven. So check this bad boy out. As you can see
it’s lightly browned on top, it doesn't need that much color, eggs actually cook really
quickly, and once you take this out of the oven they will continue to cook, so if there's
a slight jiggle, that is totally fine. Right now I am just gonna set this over to the side,
let it cool down completely, and then we’re gonna cut a nice big slice. So my quiche has
set a little bit, it’s cooled down, now I'm gonna cut myself a nice big slice. There
you go, you see all that lovely filling and the savory custard there in the middle. Also
a nice thick layer of pastry. That is the kind of quiche that I like. I mean seriously.
So when I went to school, and did home economics, this is one of the first things you learned
how to make. And it’s such a classic dish, I mean pastry, and then this lovely savory
custard in the middle, with bacon and cheese. It doesn't get much better than this. So if
you make it, rate it on my website, I'd love to know what you think. I hope you enjoyed
this episode, and I’ll see you back here really soon for more Bigger Bolder Baking.