To blind bake or not to blind bake.....

That is the question?

Dairy free sweet potato and spring onion quiche

It's really confusing, when do you need to blind bake a  pastry tart. If your adding a non baked filling to an pie shell, then yes I can understand it would need to be baked first.  However the Internet and most of my cookbooks are  full of conflicting advise.  Last time I made my dairy free quiche I didn't blind bake it and it turned out great.  So yesterday I decided to part blind bake the crust of the quiche I was making for my Tea.

I finally got some use out of the dried soya beans I bought I few months.  (Did the whole soaking before  cooking thing but they still turned out hard!!!)  Placed some grease proof paper on top of the crust and filled with the beans to keep it from puffing up. 

Note:  The bean's can not be cooked and eaten as normal after.  But you can Re-use the same dried bean's to blind bake,  just keep them in a tin or plastic tub next to your baking tins. This way  also works out a lot cheaper than buying ceramic ones. 

Took them out after 15 Min's and returned the crust to the oven for another 10 Min's to crisp up. 

Note:  Apparently the crust can steam cook rather than bake if the beans are left on too long.  Rather like baking a chicken under tin foil to keep it moist, then removing so it can crisp up. 

Learnt that using grease proof paper was not one of my best idea's.  The paper ripped as I tried to remove it from the crust, and I ended up with soya beans every where..... 

TIP: Use tin foil rather than grease proof paper. 

Let the crust cool then poured in the filling and baked at a lower temp in the oven. 

The crust was more  brown than my first attempt, where I didn't blind bake the crust.  Apart from that I would say both crusts were......  well crusty.......

This may be due to the fact, that I followed one of the tips I learnt from the pantry.  When I bake a pie I place the it in a roasting tin, rather than directly onto the wire shelves of the oven.  It makes it easier to remove with out me burning myself  and it also evenly distributes heat to the base. This helps to prevent  the crust from getting a soggy bottoms. 

Dairy free quiche recipe

Apart from my little experiment my quiche tasted great.  I cut 1 sweet potato into about 2 cm cubes, then sprinkled with chill powder for 20 Min's before leaving to cool.  Made the diary free quiche custard and added 3 chopped spring onions to it. 

TIP: I find cutting spring onions with kitchen scissors is a lot easier than using a knife.

 

I think it's a case of which technique works best for you.  Rather like cake making, some people prefer the all in one method, while others prefer to cream the butter and sugar first.  I'm going to stick to the no blind baking as it's a lot less hassle.  And doesn't involve me chasing soya beans around my kitchen xxx