I need a quiche intervention!

[StatelyAsAGalleon]

ARGH! I am a competent cook and am good at improvising/inventing nice stuff to eat. However, my achilles heel seems to be the quiche! I thought they were supposed to be easy?!?

Clearly I am doing something wrong. I have a fancy tin, I bought ceramic beans, I bought posh, all-butter pastry. I pricked the base, I squished the pastry in tight to the tin - all the things described in the NUMEROUS recipes I have looked at.

However, pastry is my nemesis. It shrinks back too much, or it puffs up, basically rendering the case unfit for savoury-custard-retention.

What AM I doing wrong? What are your fool-proof tips for quiche magnificence?

Delia, Nigel and Hugh are all silently judging me.

This James Martin recipe works.

Use 1p coins instead of baking beans to weigh paper down. Prick the base well with a fork.

You don't need loads of 1p coins. Just a single layer on the bottom of the tin. You need the coins to get hot against the paper. Then take paper out after 15 mins to let base dry out.

Remember you are not cooking the pastry really just drying it.

Ah, that's a thought ManWithNoName - I hadn't looked at it that way. I guess coins would conduct the heat a bit better than my (posh) John Lewis beans...?

Cheaper too.

I bet your beans take ages to get hot. Heston uses 1p coins.

Make whole wheat pastry. Doesn't really shrink or puff up.

Also, always leave extra pastry hanging out of the tin for the blind bake. You can cut the excess off once it's filled.

I am not going to let this defeat me! I am getting straight back on the pastry horse (as it were)!

pastry shrinks if it is stretched and it is really easy to do that pressing it into the base/corners.

Once it is rolled I lift it, rolled around the pin into the tin/dish, lay it gently over the dish and then lift gently all around the edges in turn and lift it and do a rolley foldey movement to set/drop the pastry right into the corner.

Ease in all the way round then using the rolling pin roll over the edges....that will squish it down a bit and cut the pastry against the rim, but go all around the edge with your thumb abd just press it back, this also give you a little extra height but still with the nice tidy edge, which you don't get if you leave the excess, bake and then cut.

If in the mood to blind bake I also put the dish onto a tray that is hot in the oven,, and I use ceramic beads...not loads though, just enough to cover the bottom, give it 15 mins or so and then fill it and finish the recipe

More often than not though I do not blind bake, I just fill the dish, add the filling...only ever cream and eggs though, no milk, it is too wet. Plus whaever you are putting in the quiche

Dh's most favourite is onion relish on the bottom, bacon and sundried tomatoes, grated cheese, then over with the eggs and cream

My mam (who doesn't get along with pastry making) swears by self-crusting quiche recipes

(I don't like quiche so I have no idea how the taste compares though)

Catsmamma, that may be my new favourite tart filling now...