Fun with Puff Pastry

As often happens, when I start a project I am not really sure where I will end up. I began with the premise that I needed new and different snacks for my next chemo round. Though the little frozen quiche I had purchased at Costco weren't bad, as my taste buds decline, all I could actually taste of these little treats was salt. So, given that I know how to beat an egg, making my own tiny quiche seemed like a clever idea.

I started by making the mix-ins. Pancetta and ham rendered into crispy cubes, chopped blanched spinach, diced feta cheese, and lots of shredded guyere. The custard is easy: 6 eggs and 2 cups of milk with a pinch of salt. A simple formula that can be increased or decreased without any change in the results.

Since I was feeling lazy, I purchased sheets of puff pastry. Now the good news about puff pastry is that it puffs. The bad news about puff pastry is that it puffs. With a biscuit cutter, I made rounds of the puff pastry which I then rolled out and placed into muffin tins. I filled the center of the tin with ceramic marbles so that I would have a cavity to place the quiche filling. After placing the first tray into the oven, I heard a random metallic 'pop.' Darn if the marbles weren't getting thrown from the tin into the oven!

Removing the ceramic marbles was a bit of a challenge, but I was left with puff shells. I placed shredded guyere at the bottom of each shell, and then added either spinach and feta, or ham. Then I filled the shell with the custard mixture. Well, puff pastry is rather pourous, and the custard didn't sit in the shell, it was absorbed by it. At first this concerned me. After all, this is not the way 'it is supposed' to be. But then I thought, "who cares? If it tastes good, that is enough." And I continued filling, baking, and rolling.

This was all very exciting. Long and short of it is, that after Leslie 'sampled for quality assurance' a number of the resulting mini-quiche, I have 12 minis, 6 small and 1 large quiche in the refrigerator/freezer.

Of all the pastries that I created, two of the puffs were failures. When pulled from the oven, they had wholes in the bottom of the pastry. No way to add goodies, so instead we put a dap of apricot jam on top and had a sweet and delicious treat.

The quiche assembly line.
















Mini Quiches fresh from the oven.