To talk about baking pies and tarts, we have to understand blind baking.
The dough, whether it is a pie dough or a tart dough contains moisture. This moisture is not just the water we add in, but also present in the butter.
When the dough bakes, heat releases moisture in the form of steam in between layers. This makes your crust crispy and flakey, but it also causes it to rise unevenly.
Some tarts such as the quiche requires the crust to be baked before you add the filling to ensure that the dough is thoroughly cooked as the baking temperature for the crust (400F/200C) and filling (330F/165C) are different.
Blind baking is baking the pie with with a covered surface (use heat safe cling film, aluminium foil or crushed up parchment) on the dough with a weight (you can buy these ceramic or metal pie weights from the store or just used dried beans) to prevent it from puffing up so the end result is a nice flat surface. The dough should be relatively cooked through, the weight is then removed and baking is continued until the surface has cooked. The crust has cooked almost through, but the surface has not crispened up in the first step, the crust won’t rise after the weights are removed. The second step is to fully cook the surface.
Pâte brisée, pie crust/dough, quiche dough, shortcrust? However you wanna call it. Different name for the same product. It is flakey with layers reminiscent to a rough puff pastry. Buttery and crisp.
It isn’t like a pâte sucree aka. sweet tart dough/crust, whose end product is a lighter tender, almost biscuit like texture.
To make a quiche we’ll be making the crust and the savoury egg custard filling.
Pâte Brisée
Yield: One 9″ quiche
250g Bread Flour
205g Unsalted butter, cold and diced
3g Salt
55g Iced Water, strained
Rub the butter into flour and salt until it resembles small pea sized bits.
Knead in water and mix until just combined.
Shape into a flat disc and refrigerate for at least 2-3 hours.
Roll out to 2-3mm thick and line tart pan (I used a shallow 9″ cake tin)
Refrigerate at least 1 hour or up to 24 hours (cover with clingwrap if refrigerating for more than hour to prevent the crust from drying out)
Preheat an oven to 400F/200C
Blind bake about 20 minutes. Remove weights and bake for about 5 more minutes.
Pie doughs are best prepared the day before.
Quiche Filling
Yield: one 9″ quiche
300g Eggs
200g Milk
60g Cream
6g Salt
Black Pepper to taste
Blend and strain first 4 ingredients, season with black pepper.
I added 1 TBSP ramp pesto, mozzarella, hard sheep cheese, green garlic, bacon, and spring veggies.
Preheat an oven to 330F/165C.
Mix ramp pesto into quiche filling.
Lay veggies and cheese into the baked crust.
Pour egg filling over veggies.
Bake for about 45 minutes (check from here every 5-10 mins) until it has a core temperature of 172F/78C.
Cool and remove from tin, serve warm.
Recipe adapted from chefsteps:
https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/pate-brisee
https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/quiche-lorraine
