I haven’t eaten much quiche…ever. I am not one for custards, creams, creme(s), pudding, mousse, cheesecake, or anything with a similar texture. OK I’ll eat a small bit of cheesecake when warranted, but the rest I try to stay away from.
However, when I read Philip Dorwart’s article on quiche, I became intrigued. A crowd pleaser? Made ahead of time? No stress the morning of (much less a dirty kitchen)? Deep dish quiche? Whoa! I’m in!
I had grand aspirations to follow his lead and make it ahead of time in order to eat Sunday morning, sitting on the deck reading the newspaper. I got to work right Friday night and bought a bunch of filler at the grocery store (smoked salmon, asparagus, spinach, herbs, feta[???]) as well as the custards components listed in Dorwart’s article.
While I envisioned this to be stress free, it became nothing other than stressful when trying to create crust that I could work with, wouldn’t crack, would become malleable yet not melt on the counter. Attempting to make a flaking, workable crust took no less than four times and thus necessitated that I created the quiche on Saturday rather than Friday. I was stressed, hurt and felt like a failure as I went to bed that night but woke up with new hope and satisfaction when I found my crust recipe from school in the basement (found here), and created the perfect crust.
From there quiche baking became easier, though with a hint of excusable-not-my-fault-failure.
I had the contents prepared the night before (sweat out the veggies, didn’t eat all of the smoked salmon…) and were ready for the batter, which I poured in on top.
What I did not anticipate is that my cheap-o Ikea spring form pans would leak all over the counter, on the floor and in the oven. Though this was a deep dish quiche, I lost a considerable amount of batter (it was shortly after this incident that I added some spring form pans to our wedding registry. ;) ).
Despite the dramatic loss, it only took a dull knife to cut the crust down to the height of the actual quiche and still look like it could be deep dish.
*The feta was over doing it. I should have left it off.
**I also should not have added the sea salt as the recipe indicated since the smoked salmon had more than enough seasoning.
But it was delicious, even for a girl who doesn’t care for the custardy things in life.
As described at the top of the linked recipe, I only had 2 spring form pans, and instead of halving the recipe, I went all out. My four layer cake therefore contains two dozen eggs. TWO DOZEN EGGS. That is a dozen more than Smitten Kitchewn calls for, and I can see why. This cake is beyond rich, but is so satisfying as well.
It wasn’t the taste of the cake that pleased me most as I was more delighted at it’s appearance, and my ability to successfully construct a multi-layered cake unlike
It was not perfect, but at least a vast improvement. Had the layers themselves not been exposed and could have been covered in frosting, you would not even see the problem areas.
