I thought it was time that we tackle

one of my favorite party foods, Quiche.

Quiche is one of those things

that you really want to have

a foolproof recipe at your disposal

because when it goes wrong, it can really go wrong

and we have all seen those effects.

The crumbly crust,

the fillings that have no structure

and turn into a bit of a wobbly mess,

the add-ons that are sort of half cooked.

Yeah, we've all seen it.

It's not pretty, but not to worry

because I am going to arm you with a fantastic recipe

that'll have you making a great tasting quiche

every single time.

The best part is, it can all be made the day before,

my kind of meal.

Before we begin, tip number one has to do

with choosing the right pan.

I'm a big fan of these removable bottom tart pans

because you can make a quiche or a tart

and then when it's fully baked, all you have to do

is remove the ring

and you are left with a beautiful presentation.

If you want to know where to get one of these pans,

I put a link in the description for where you can get one

for just under $20.

If you don't have a tart pan

or you don't have a food processor, that's okay.

Here's how you can make another great looking quiche.

Go and buy one of those store-bought pie crusts,

typically the ones that are deep dish will work the best.

Here's a little cheat that I learned

when I worked in a bakery when I was 16,

it was my first job,

and my job was pie duty.

One of the things that they taught me how to do,

which is a great little cheat,

is to take the store bought pie crust,

crimp it all around the edges so that you're creating

sort of a nice, flat surface

then go in and start pinching the side,

just creating nice little triangles

all around the edges.

When you're done, it'll look like you actually

rolled out that dough and formed it yourself.

It really looks great with this recipe, as well.

The first thing we're going to do

to make our homemade crust, is we're going to take

a cup and a quarter of flour,

add it to our food processor

with a teaspoon of salt.

Give that a light pulse.

Then you're gonna add one half cup of butter

and you want to make sure that that butter

is in little cubes.

Go ahead and just add it as you're pulsing the machine.

You'll know when it's done when the flour resembles

a coarse meal.

Here is my second tip when it comes to preventing

those crumbly crusts.

You really want to make sure that you put some egg

in your dough

because the egg is really gonna help

the flour and the butter bind together

and prevent your crust from turning into a crumbly mess.

So I'm a big fan of adding egg and water

to pie crust dough.

You're gonna give your egg a nice light whisk,

you're gonna add that egg mixture to your flour mixture

just pulsing all the while

until a nice dough develops, and you can stop.

This point, I know we're supposed to take that dough,

wrap it up, put it in the fridge for 30 minutes

but I have found that I cheat a little bit

and it always tends to work for me

so I'm going to share with you my little technique.

I know this is very unconventional

and there could be pastry chefs out there

that are rolling your eyes at me.

I know, but this is what I do.

I take the dough, I roll it out really quickly,

just reminding myself

that I know I'm not supposed to do this

but I'm doing it anyway.

Seems to sort of help move things along.

Then I take the dough, I plop it into my tin,

work it in all around the sides

making sure that it's nice and fit

and then I do what I call little fist bumps.

I take my fist and I go all along the side

just making sure that the sides of the pan are all fitted.

Sometimes when you do that, the dough will rise up

to the tart pan, that's okay, that's what you want

because we're gonna take a little paring knife

and we're going to trim all along the side of the dough.

What we're gonna do now is we're gonna take our tin

and we're gonna pop it in the freezer

for at least 20 minutes.

That's okay, we have other things to do

while our dough is getting nice and hard.

This stage, we're gonna work on our filling.

You're gonna take out a large saute pan.

To that, you're gonna add a tablespoon of butter.

Once it's nice and melted,

you're gonna add a half a cup of diced white onion.

Then you're gonna season, just to taste,

with some salt and pepper.

Then once it's nice and sauteed

and those onions are translucent,

you can go ahead and add the spinach.

If you have never cooked with spinach before,

not to worry.

It looks like a ton of spinach,

and I'm using six ounces here,

but this is going to cook down to about a cup.

Just keep your eye on it and give it a saute

till it's nice and wilted.

Once it reaches that stage, you can go ahead

and turn off your flame and let the filling cool.

Meanwhile, we are going to work on our egg batter.

In a large bowl, you're going to add 10 eggs,

give those a good whisk,

then we are going to add a cup of heavy cream.

This is my other tip for you

if you wanna get a foolproof quiche.

Quiche, at the end of the day,

is not diet food, unfortunately.

It tastes too good to be diet food.

It's really party food

and if you want to make a fantastic tasting quiche,

you've gotta go with the full cream.

A lot of you know this as double-pouring cream.

In France, when I buy it, it's called creme liquide,

so, really, it's just a heavy, pourable cream

that you can use to really give your quiche

a lot of structure.

If you end up using milk or half and half,

your quiche is probably not gonna have

that kind of structure, it'll be kind of wobbly

because you really need that full fat

to give it that structure.

So, word to the wise, use the heavy cream.

Whisk that together

and then we're gonna add our seasonings.

We're going to add a teaspoon of salt,

some freshly cracked pepper

and an eighth of a teaspoon of cayenne pepper.

I love a little kick in a quiche

in the form of some cayenne pepper

but if you're not a fan of spice,

you could either leave it out

or another traditional thing to do to add to a quiche

is some nutmeg,

so you could add an eighth of a teaspoon of ground nutmeg.

Give that a whisk and there you have it,

your egg mixture is done.

This is a great recipe that you could really put

any filling into this.

I like the spinach and the onion because

I think it's really great for Spring time

but you could use cheese and ham,

you could use mushroom, ratatouille,

really any filling you like you can add to this batter

so really get creative, the choice is up to you.

At this point, our spinach and onion mixture

is probably cooled

so you can go ahead and just pour it out

onto a cutting board.

You'll want to give that spinach a nice, rough chop.

Go ahead and place it into your bowl,

give it a whisk

and then we are going to add a half a cup

of grated Gruyere cheese.

It's really the best kind of cheese

to use for a quiche like this.

So, now, here is another tip for you.

A lot of times, quiche recipes will call for

blind baking the crust ahead of time,

which essentially just means taking your crust,

putting some parchment paper down with some beans

and baking the crust.

I have found that this is where you can really trip up

because a lot of times, that crust will not hold its shape.

It'll start to sort of sink down

and then you end up with a sort of misshapen crust.

Yeah, I hate the blind baking,

I am really not a fan of it.

I think it does more damage than good, in my opinion.

What I do, and this is why we froze it,

we wanted to make sure that that crust

was nice and hard when it hits a hot oven,

we are just gonna go ahead and work quickly

and we are gonna pour our batter right into our crust

and we are gonna pop it in a 350 degree oven

for about 45 to 50 minutes.

You want to keep your eye on it.

You want to make sure that the crust

and that the quiche, is nice and golden brown

but that the quiche is not wobbly.

If it starts to wiggle or jiggle,

your quiche is not done

and it probably needs another five to ten minutes.

If your quiche is getting too brown on top,

you can just go ahead and cover it

with some aluminum foil

and that way, the quiche will cook inside

but your crust and your quiche will not burn on the outside.

When your quiche is done, you can go ahead

and pull it out of the oven and let it cool.

If you're serving it right away,

you can go ahead and just slice it in half

and then slice it into quarters or eighths.

I also love to serve this dish

with a beautiful tossed salad

and if you missed last week's recipes,

you can actually click on the annotation here

and you will see some of my

favorite salad dressing recipes

that would be perfect for this quiche.

If you wanted to make this ahead of time for a party,

that is a great thing to do.

In fact, this is what I'm going to be doing

for Easter this year.

You can go ahead and make your quiches,

let them cool completely,

then wrap them in aluminum foil,

pop it in the fridge overnight

and then when you want to serve them,

go ahead and put them in a 300 degree oven,

still covered, for at least 20 minutes.

Then remove the foil and allow them to bake

without the foil for about five minutes.

You'll see, all you have to do the day of the party

is toss your salad and warm up your quiche

and you're good to go.

I love this recipe because quiche is such an elegant thing

to serve at a party.

It's great lap food, too, so you can slice a piece,

if you've got a big crowd

people can kind of eat it on their laps.

They're having something elegant that isn't too messy.