Quiche
A pastry case holding a baked custard — two structures with incompatible requirements, which is the whole of what makes it difficult.
Also called savoury tart (UK), egg tart (INTERNATIONAL), quiche lorraine (INTERNATIONAL)
A quiche is a shortcrust case filled with a savoury egg-and-dairy custard and baked until the filling sets. BakeHQ covers the baking structure — the case, the custard and how the two interact — and not the cooking of what goes inside them.
THE CENTRAL PROBLEM IS THAT THE TWO COMPONENTS WANT OPPOSITE THINGS. Pastry wants dry, high heat so it sets and crisps before it can absorb anything. Custard wants gentle, moderate heat, because egg protein overcooks within a narrow range and curdles into something grainy and weeping. Baking them together at a single temperature is a compromise, and every quiche technique exists to widen it.
BLIND BAKING IS THE MAIN ONE. Baking the case empty, and often sealing it, gives the pastry its dry high-heat phase before the wet filling ever touches it. Skipping it is the commonest route to a soggy base, because raw pastry in contact with liquid custard hydrates faster than it bakes.
THE SET IS PROTEIN COAGULATION and nothing else. There is no starch structure and no leavening; a quiche that puffs has been baked too hot and will sink and weep as it cools. It should be taken out while the centre still moves, because it finishes setting off the heat.
A WATERY FILLING is usually not the custard at all but water released by whatever was put into it. Vegetables in particular carry a great deal of water that leaves during baking, and it dilutes the custard rather than evaporating from inside a sealed case.
What it should be like
- Structure
- Crisp case, smoothly set filling with no separation
- Tenderness
- Custard soft and sliceable, never rubbery
- Crust
- Dry and coloured underneath, not pale or damp
Where BakeHQ stops
This page is about a pastry case and a baked custard. What fills it is cooking rather than baking, and BakeHQ does not cover the seasoning, the ingredients or the cuisine.
The line is drawn where the question stops being about structure. Why the base is soggy, why the filling weeps, why the custard is rubbery and how blind baking changes the outcome are all here. What to put in it is not, and neither is anything about food safety, which is referred to the relevant authority as a standing rule.
Related
Part of
A pastry case is the structural component BakeHQ owns here. The filling is cooking.
What this product needs done
Structure building
The filling sets by egg protein coagulating and by nothing else. A quiche that puffs has been baked too hot.
Gluten inhibition
The case is a short paste: fat interrupting the flour structure so the pastry is tender rather than tough.
Emulsification
Egg yolk holding fat and water together in the custard. A broken emulsion is the route to a grainy, weeping set.
Hydration
The custard is largely liquid, and it is in direct contact with pastry that must not absorb it. That conflict is the whole product.
Techniques this product depends on
The technique that resolves the conflict at the centre of the product: it gives the pastry its dry high-heat phase before the wet filling arrives.
Characteristic ingredients
The whole of the set.
Things that go wrong
The single most-asked quiche question, and the reason blind baking exists.
The case shrinking down the sides is the commonest quiche pastry failure, and it happens before the filling ever arrives.