How to Overcome a Kitchen Fail

Bacon Gruyere Crustless Quiche

The Fail

My mom and her mom weren’t big on cooking but they were pie makers. I’m using past tense because my mom no longer bakes pies very often and as I wrote in my Mother’s Day tribute post last Thursday, my sweet Gran just passed away 3 months ago at 102!

Gran made the absolute best caramel and chocolate pies and passed that down to my mom. It apparently skipped a generation because neither me nor my sister can bake a pie to save our lives. Gun to my head “Make a Pie!” I’m afraid my fate would be sealed. (Sorry for the violent image…watching a lot of spy/mafia movies at the moment.)

I just simply am not a baker and wrestling pastry dough into a pan and gracefully “fluting” it is not my forte. So why I thought making a quiche for Mother’s Day would be easy, I don’t know, but I wanted to give it a shot and hoped to post this beautiful experience here on Substack. Suffice it to say, we didn’t have quiche. Instead, the men made us my fave brunch from my first Mother’s Day 25 years ago - Croissant French Toast with sauteed apples.

A recipe developer and blogger for 15 years, I’ve always and only posted the most beautiful images of my successes. I mean why would anyone want to see my failures, right? But I’ve learned in order to truly be a mentor, my goal with this Substack publication, it’s important to be real.

So here it is…my pastry failure.

I diligently chilled my dough. I rolled it out with tons of extra gluten free flour to help it release. Then I did what I’ve watched others do successfully: Flip the parchment covered pastry into the pan and have the perfect beginnings for the photo-worthy crust. Nope, what I had was an off-centered swath of dough that fell apart in several places.

Two things saved me. Gluten free pastry, which is more forgiving of all the pressing and working necessary to fit it to the pan than regular pastry. And the fluted tart pan made it look like I had some skills. Lesson learned…leave pie crust making to the experts. (Or learn from

Rachel Ciordas

how to bake!)

Making the classic bacon-onion-gruyere custard filling took 5 minutes and was more doable and involved less science so I was back in my cooking wheelhouse. The final question was, would it turn out.

Well yes, it looked and tasted pretty good but I felt like it was way too involved to post on here. The crust was giving me fits and it used a fancy single use pan most people don’t have and that I, in fact, had to use a ladder to get down I use it so infrequently! The other problem was the weird texture created by the caramelized onions that also caused the filling to separate.

How I Fixed My Fail

My goal is to make you loooove cooking. It needs to be fast and weeknight doable and the crusted version of the quiche was neither and of course those onions were a no-go. So this double fail needing some fixing. I did love the bacon gruyere combo with the creamy eggs so that stayed but I made one more change. (Vegetarians, see Notes below.)

I felt like using individual ceramic tart dishes makes this simple egg dish brunchier which is what I was going for since this was originally a Mother’s Day brunch idea. While you may not have them in your kitchen now, let me just say they are inexpensive and I use them regularly for simple cocktail apps like nuts and olives, etc. and on charcuterie boards for dips and spreads so they do triple duty around here. See Notes for alternative pans if you don’t have or don’t want to buy these dishes.

What to Serve with your Crustless Quiche

Here are a few ideas:

• A simple salad - Mixed greens seasoned with salt and pepper then drizzled with lemon juice and good olive oil.

• Fancy Fruit Option: Mixed Berry Compote - Mix quartered strawberries with raspberries and blueberries. Toss gently with a little squeeze of lemon or lime juice, honey and mint. Let stand for 30 minutes.

• Not-So-Fancy Fruit Option: Anything Goes Fruit Salad - Whatever fruit you have, chop it up and serve it on the side. You can even just serve with apple or orange wedges.

• Asparagus - Broil asparagus spears for 5 minutes. Drizzle with EVOO and a little sea salt and pepper.

Notes

• Non Gluten Free - Simply used unbleached organic flour instead of GF flour.

• Crustless or Crusted - Try it with or without the crust. I’m including the crust recipe and all the photos for baking it in the PDF below. That said, storebought crust is certainly acceptable and preferable if you, like me, are pastry inept and want to make an actual crusted quiche.

• Lactose or Dairy Free - There are two dairy ingredients in this recipe. Cream and Gruyere Cheese. If you’re lactose free use Nutpods for the cream but Gruyere is naturally lactose free if you get a well aged one like Cave Aged Gruyere. But you can also use VioLife Parmesan instead of Gruyere to keep it completely dairy free.

• Keto - This is about as Keto as you can get! Enjoy.

• Paleo - Use dairy free notes above and omit the gluten free flour and baking powder. If you’re making the crusted version, use the crust recipe on the PDF rather than buying one since grain-free crusts are almost impossible to find.

• Make Ahead - Quiches and egg dishes in general are awesome to make ahead and enjoy all week. If you make them in the individual dishes without crust, just warm them in an air fryer (yes dish can go in) for 5 minutes on 350. Warm the crusted version in slices the same time and temp.

• Meal Prep - Make in muffin pan (silicone work best) and warm for only 2-3 minutes. A muffin pan will fit best for the water bath in a 9 x 13 metal or glass pan.

• Other Cheeses - I prefer to use Cave Aged Gruyere since it’s raw milk and well aged which I tolerate better. Use any Gruyere, Cheddar, Swiss or other sharp hard cheese. In a pinch, mix of cheddar and parmesan if your local store doesn’t have a big selection of cheeses.

• Vegetarian - Use finely chopped mushrooms, spinach or a combo of the two. Sauté them first then sub them for the bacon.

• Kid Friendly - I don’t know many kids who don’t like bacon and cheese. If the Gruyere is too strong, however, use any of the cheeses above. If you don’t eat bacon, use turkey bacon or the vegetarian subs above.

• Alternative Baking Dish - You could certainly bake this in a pie plate for a weeknight meal, which this is since hands-on time’s only about 5 minutes and then you can bathe your kids or have a cocktail, depending on what phase of life you’re in, while it’s baking. But since the pie plate version looks like a frittata and I had recently posted a Cacio e Pepe Frittata - Cheese and Pepper Omelet with asparagus - and wanted to offer you something a little different.

  Cacio e Pepe Frittata

Download the recipe PDF Below