As I have mentioned before I have a quick and easy recipe for making mini-quiches that from start to finish only takes me about 30 minutes. The brilliant thing about quiches is that when you have the base ingredients of eggs, sour cream and pastry, what you then fill it with is up to you. Got some leftover veg? they can go in. Got some spinach and cheese, right on, lets do that. Want to make something fancy, go and buy some fancy ‘faux’ meats or cheeses or bits and pieces and in they go to. The combination of the flavours is yours.
These ones shown below are the classic spinach and feta.
Preheat the oven to 200C.
This is a quick cheats mini quiche. So I use store brought puff pastry. Yeah quiche is generally flaky shortcrust pastry, but that requires blind baking (ie EFFORT) and we don’t want none of that. So defrost 3 sheets of puff pastry per 12 quiches. My cupcake pan has 12 cupcake holes. This math is the good type of math. Spray your mathematical 12 hole cupcake tray with a cooking spray.
I have a nifty super awesome pastry cutter from my pie maker. The smaller side makes a circle that fits exactly in my cupcake holes. That is also a good type of err geometry? Lets call it luck and move on. Cut 4 circles out of each pastry sheet. They should be soft and defrosted, so shove em in the holes. You will need to crimp some of the edges, so do that. Repeat for the other two pastry sheets. It’s now ready to fill.
The egg mixture is the easiest yet most important part of the quiche. This is the secret. You need half an egg per mini-quiche plus an extra egg to round it out. So in this case I was making 2 dozen or 2 batches, so I used 12 eggs plus 2, and it turned out perfect. It took me several times making this recipe to figure out I needed an extra egg per try and 1/2 an egg per quiche. I’ve done all the leg work for you, just trust me, those extra eggs make it perfect. You also add salt and pepper and sour cream. For my two batches (2 dozen) I used a 250g tub of sour cream. So for one batch or a dozen, use half that. Whisk until all ingredients are combined. It does not have to be perfectly smooth, so don’t over beat the eggs.
The feta I used was a garlic feta, here one pack of feta per batch, do two packs of 150g feta were used. Crumble it into a bowl. Take a pack of spinach (300g pack for 2 dozen) and put some baby spinach leaves raw into the raw pastry cases. enough to come to the top, but don’t force it down. It needs airholes for the egg mixture to get into. Take some feta and drop it on top. Again don’t press down, just let the weight of the feta hold down the spinach.
Now for those of you that caught on, if you wanted to use other fillings, instead of spinach and feta, you would do the same. Loosely fill each case with your filling so its has some gaps in it, and comes to pretty much the top of the case.
The next bit I have also done some perilous experimentation for you all. Do not put the egg mixture into a pouring container. This leads to much more mess and waste than you are ready for. Because the egg is bindey, and stretchy and kinda sticks together, it makes a massive mess. I take one of me 1/3 measuring cups, and fill it almost to the top and use that to fill each quiche with egg mixture. It works. Its the least messy way to do it, and it gives you the perfect amount. Do this slowly, the egg needs to run down the feta, around the spinach and find the holes and settle. If you do it too fast it will just spill over the edges.
When the egg settles it looks empty, but that baby puffs up. Do not overfill or it will go everywhere when cooking. Again ive done the experiments. This recipe is all about math and science and my own kitchen messes.
When its full its time to pop into the oven.
It takes about 15-20 minutes depending on your oven and patience. I turn my tray around half way through because I have a super warm spot at the back corner of my oven so it makes it evener. You will know when its ready by the pastry being puffy and brown on the edges, the egg mixture should have puffed up pretty big and it shouldn’t been loose and still wet. It should be a firm puffy eggy yummy thing. It can be a little soft in the middle, as it will keep cooking a bit while resting.
Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack. I use a fork to help lift the quiches out. They never stick (if the egg hasn’t run under the pastry – again scientific experimentation has given me this proof). Repeat for second batch. Stand close to cooking quiches with a wooden spoon as husband has come wandering out due to tasty smells and keeps asking if anyone will notice one less. Smack his knuckles with the wooden spoon and send him and the dogs out of the kitchen. Place on a decorative tray and take to party. Let everyone think it was a super hard arduous feat at making such tasty yummy mini quiches. Revel in how easy it really was. These are the perfect finger food.
Ingredients
(makes 24)
6 sheets of puff pastry
300g feta
300g baby spinach
14 eggs
250g sour cream
salt and pepper
Directions
Preheat oven to 200C. Defrost puff pastry sheets. Spray cupcake tin with cooking spray. Cut 4 circles out of 3 pastry sheets. Place circles into cupcake tin. Fill each pastry case with baby spinach to the brim without packing it down, it needs to remain loose. Break up feta into a bowl and put some feta on top of each spinach filled pastry case.
Combine sour cream with eggs and add salt and pepper to taste and whisk until mostly combined. Take a 1/3 measuring cup and fill to mostly full and gently pour this into each pastry case. Allow the egg to flow down and fill all the holes. Do not add more egg mixture than this, or it will overflow when cooking. Repeat until all cases are filled with spinach and cheese and egg.
Place tray into preheated oven for 15-20 minutes until the pastry is brown around the edges and the egg mixture has puffed and firmed up and is not jiggly.
Remove tray from oven, and remove each quiche gently with a fork, onto a cooling rack. Serve immediately or later at room temperature.
