These quick, mini quiches are great for after-school snacks, lunch box treats, or as part of a main meal. You can be as creative as you like when it comes to the filling: today, along with the staple grated cheese and egg & milk mix, we used pesto, tomato puree, smoked salmon and sweetcorn fillings, and they were all absolutely delicious!
You will need:
150g plain flour
75g margarine
6 teaspoons very cold water
pinch of salt
50g grated cheddar cheese
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
variety of fillings: tomato puree, pesto, smoked salmon, flaked tuna, sweetcorn, cooked broccoli
round pastry/cookie cutter, approx 8.5cm diameter
greased tart tin
Method:
Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 5, 190 degrees C, 375 degrees F. Grease the tart tin with a little margarine on some kitchen paper.
Make the pastry by sifting the flour into a big mixing bowl, and adding small pieces at a time of the margarine, rubbing the margarine into the flour until all the marg has been used up and a consistency of breadcrumbs has been achieved! Try and do this using the tips of your fingers - as my daughter said, you should have clean palms at the end of this process!!!
To the breadcrumb mixture, add the water using a blunt knife to mix it in. Squeeze the resulting mixture into a ball of dough.
Sprinkle a little flour onto your work surface. Roll out the pastry fairly thinly - if you don't your quiches will be too stodgy. Cut out circles from the rolled out pastry - these quantities should give enough for around 12 quiches.
Press the cut out circles into the greased baking tray. Now comes the fun bit - adding your fillings! You don't need large quantities of anything - we used tomato puree, pesto, sweetcorn and smoked salmon, and you can see from the next photo that you don't need much - a squeeze of puree, a teaspoon of pesto, a couple of ribbons of smoked salmon, and a heaped teaspoon of sweetcorn should suffice.
Next, sprinkle some of the grated cheese on top of the base fillings.
Beat the egg and milk together in a jug, and pour a little of the mixture into each quiche case. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until they are golden and puffed up! Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
My younger DD really did do most of this herself - they are easy enough for children to make with careful supervision, and she thoroughly enjoyed the fruits of her labours for her tea!
Jo xxx
Do you know, I am DEFINATELY going to have a go at making these over the weekend, they look delish, I wouldn't have known where to start! (...and please can I borrow your darling assistant ;) )
Posted by: Charlotte | January 18, 2008 at 01:50 PM
oh she is adorable - good advertising for the quiche!!
Posted by: Paula | January 18, 2008 at 10:57 PM