Double cheese quiche
If you don't have any ceramic beans or pie weights to weigh down the pastry shell for pre-baking or blind baking, try using dried beans or rice. The reason why you need to blind bake first is because cooking melts the butter in the dough, as it melts, the pastry shrinks down the sides of the tin. What's more as the butter melts, it also produces steam, and steam makes the pastry puff up that's why you need something heavy to weigh the it down.
Ingredients (serves 6)
250g plain flour
125g unsalted cold butter, cut into pieces
3-4 tbsp water
50g grated Gruyère cheese
50g mature Cheddar cheese
500ml reduced fat milk
4 small eggs, beaten
black pepper
Method
Put the flour in a mixing bowl, rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
Mix the water into the flour mixture until combined. You may need to add a bit more water if the pastry is too dry. Wrap the pastry in clingfilm and allow it to rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 200C/180Cfan/Gas Mark 6.
Roll the pastry out slightly larger than the quiche tin (23cm circle tin, 3cm deep). Line the base and edges of the tin with the pastry. Trim any excess pastry and set this aside in the fridge.
Put the pastry back in the fridge to relax for about 15 minutes.
Line the tin with a piece of foil, put some ceramic beans or pie weights on top of the foil. Bake the pastry for 10 minutes, take off the beans and foil. Bake for another 10 minutes. If there are any cracks at the bottom of the tin, fill it up with the excess pastry.
While the pastry is cooking, mix together the milk and eggs and season with pepper (and salt if you want).
Sprinkle half the cheese over the bottom of the pastry, pour 3/4 of the mixture into the pastry base. Place the quiche tin on a tray and slide it half way into the oven. Pour the remaining 1/4 of the mixture. Sprinkle over with the remaining cheese. Push the tray into the oven.
Lower the oven temperature to 190C/170C fan/Gas Mark 5.
Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.
Nutritional information per serving: 442kcal, 1847kJ, 15.3g protein, 26.5g fat, 37.9g carbohydrates, 1.7g fibre
Vegetarian, nut-free