Baking a deep Quiche. I blind baked the pastry, and pre-cooked the chopped bacon, then added my fillings to the pastry. Cookbooks all say cook for 40mins at 140Fan. Not a chance. It was too soggy, and took over 100mins at 140! On completion it still looked a lot squishy in the middle, and the under-pastry had a slightly 'soggy bottom'. The next day it had all solidified and scrummy, yet tasted 'slightly' undercooked. My question is - when I initially cooked it should I raise the temperature to say 160Fan?, or should I lengthen the cooking time? or both?
-
2Hi, and welcome to SA! Have a look at the Tour and Help Center, especially the guidance on how to ask a good question when you get a chance. Could you provide us with more detail on the recipe you used, and whether (for example) you deviated from the cookbook instructions at any point?– LSchoonJul 30, 2020 at 17:09
-
1@moscafj I think OP is British and did use Celsius. It says 140 fan, not 140F.– user141592Jul 30, 2020 at 18:36
-
I also assume we're speaking about Celsius ;) In which kind of vessel (thick, thin...) are you baking your quiche and at which level of the oven? If in that very oven you experienced a soggy bottom, try to put your dish in contact with the oven floor or on a rack at the lowest level. Have you tried to have a less liquid filling? You said you pre-cooked your bacon but was it dry enough?– David PJul 30, 2020 at 21:37
-
1Quiche is like cake, where if you double the recipe, you're going to have problems: cooking.stackexchange.com/a/27516/67 . If you can increase the pan size so the thickness stays the same, you might be okay.– JoeJul 31, 2020 at 15:47
-
Some answers - Did I deviate from the receipe? Yes I did. I take a receipe, cook the item, then adapt and fine tune it to my requirements. Type of vessel? A deep, 9.5in, fluted, loose bottom, metal quiche pan which was stood on a metal tray. The amount of liquid is exactly the required amount to fill the dish. The pre-cooked diced bacon [with onions] was dried on kitchen roll before adding it to the pan. I like the suggestion from David P about putting the quiche at the bottom of the oven, and it makes me think about the metal tray now, and whether it was taking some of the heat away. Hmmmm– NickJul 31, 2020 at 22:47
1 Answer
If I understand correctly, you tried to cook your quiche at 140°F, ie 60°C? That's way too low and would explain why it never cooked properly. Even if that was a typo and you cooked it at 140°C the temperature would be too low.
There isn't unfortunately a unique perfect way to cook a quiche, but generally the recipes will advise you about 45-50 min at 180°C or 30-40 min between 200 and 220°C. Then it's up to you to find the best method according to your oven, the thickness of your crust and the ingredients you add to your quiche. If you add watery elements to your quiche like vegetables, you will need to cook it longer because the water they contain will wet the crust and make it longer to cook.
A good way to improve the cooking is to "poke" (how do you say in English?) your crust with a fork before adding the ingredients, that will allow the excess humidity to escape (it's clearer in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMaOd5f6H4Q).
To absorb this extra humidity when you use watery elements in your quiche, you can add some almond powder at the bottom to absorb it (it won't alter the taste unless you really add a lot - I tried a lot once with a spinach quiche and it's actually pretty good!). But the best way to avoid this issue when cooking quiches and pies is simply to use a transparent recipient, like this you can easily control how cooked the bottom is!
