Quiche lorraine: a blind-baked shortcrust shell and a custard that must never boil
The French tart from Lorraine: thin shortcrust pastry, rendered bacon and a custard of eggs and cream, baked just until the edges set while the centre still wobbles. Two things have to be done properly: blind-bake the shell so it stays crisp, and bake at 170 °C, because egg custard above eighty-five degrees squeezes out its water and turns rubbery like an omelette. Warm for dinner, cold in a lunchbox the next day.
Your own work in that: 30 min.
- Pastry 15 min
- Pastry chilling 30 min
- Blind baking 25 min
- Filling 15 min
- Baking 35 min
- Resting 15 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneMake the shortcrust
Mix the flour with the salt, add the cold butter and rub it in with your fingertips or chop it in with a knife until you have coarse crumbs the size of peas. Add the yolk and 2–3 tablespoons of iced water and bring the dough together in under half a minute, pressing only, without kneading.
Ingredients: 200 g plain flour · 100 g butter · 1 pcs egg yolk · 3 tbsp iced water · ½ tsp salt
TipTwo things ruin shortcrust: warmth and kneading. Warm butter soaks into the flour instead of staying in flakes, and kneading develops gluten. Either one gives a base as hard as a cracker instead of a short, crumbling one.
Pea-sized crumbs, then yolk and waterChill for half an hour
Flatten the dough into a disc, wrap in film and refrigerate 30 minutes. The gluten relaxes and the butter hardens again.
TipUnchilled pastry shrinks in the oven and slumps down the sides of the tin, so the filling escapes onto the tray. Those 30 minutes are a condition, not a nicety.
A wrapped disc, half an hour in the fridgeLine the tin and blind bake
Heat the oven to 180 °C. Roll the pastry to 3 mm, lift it into a 26 cm tin, press it firmly into the corners and up the sides, trim the excess. Prick the base with a fork, line with paper and fill with dried beans. Bake 15 minutes, lift out the paper and beans and bake 10 minutes more, until the base is dry and sandy gold. Turn the oven down to 170 °C.
TipBlind baking is the only way to keep the base crisp. A liquid filling poured onto raw pastry soaks in before the flour can bake, and what sets underneath is glue.
Paper, beans, fifteen minutes, then ten withoutRender the bacon
Cut the bacon into 1 × 1 cm lardons. Put them into a cold dry pan and cook over medium heat 8 minutes, until the fat has rendered and they are golden. Lift onto paper towel.
Ingredients: 200 g smoked bacon · 4 pcs eggs · 200 ml whipping cream (30%) · 100 ml milk · 80 g hard cheese · 1 pinch nutmeg · ½ tsp black pepper · ¼ tsp salt
TipRendering drives the water out of the bacon. Raw bacon would release it during baking straight into the custard, and the cooled quiche would sit in a puddle.
From a cold pan, eight minutes, fat renderedWhisk the custard
Beat the eggs and yolk with a fork together with the cream and milk, nutmeg, pepper and a pinch of salt. Mix only until combined, without aerating: the custard should be smooth and free of foam.
TipGo carefully with the salt: the bacon and cheese bring plenty. Foam, meanwhile, rises in the oven like a soufflé and then collapses, leaving a sunken, pitted top.
A fork, just combined, no foamAssemble and bake at 170 °C
Scatter the bacon and grated cheese over the blind-baked shell. Stand the tin on a tray, pull the oven shelf out and only then pour in the custard, to no more than 5 mm below the rim. Bake 35 minutes at 170 °C, until the edges are set and a 5 cm circle in the middle still wobbles when you shake the tin.
TipEgg protein sets at 70–80 °C; above 85 °C it contracts and squeezes out water, turning the custard grainy and weeping. Hence 170 °C, and pulling it out while the centre still trembles — it finishes on residual heat.
Custard poured on the shelf, the centre must wobbleRest a quarter hour, then cut
Leave on a rack for 15 minutes. The custard finishes setting and the slices cut cleanly instead of sliding apart. Serve warm with a green salad. Keeps 3 days in the fridge; reheat 10 minutes at 160 °C, not in the microwave, which makes the base soggy.
A quarter hour on the rack, then clean slices
Before you start
The purist version
According to purists, a classic quiche lorraine has neither cheese nor onion: only bacon, eggs and cream. The version with cheese is sometimes called quiche vosgienne, the one with onion alsacienne. All are good, but it is worth knowing what you are eating.
With spinach
200 g spinach wilted in butter and squeezed hard instead of half the bacon. The squeezing is compulsory: spinach is about 90 % water.
The base went soggy anyway
The pastry was rolled too thick or blind-baked too briefly. Next time 3 mm and the full 25 minutes, and brush the baked shell with egg white and return it to the oven for 2 minutes: it sets and seals the pastry.
