Probably not. It's my turn to bake again at work, so I decided to do a sweet and a savoury. For the sweet, I did a larger version of the babka I did a while ago. For the savoury I wanted to do something reasonably elegant, so I came up with an idea to do individual quiche, using a mini-victoria sponge tin. A bit more investigation, and I decided to do a sweet-potato based quiche, rather than my normal cheese and bacon one.
There seems to be 2 ways to do sweet potato quiches...slices, or purées. I went down the purée route, which ended up working rather well. Getting the pastry into the tins, however, was a real pain, and while I'm happy with the end result, I could have made this in half the time by simply doing a single large tart!
This recipe makes way too much sweet potato filling, you could probably use about a third of it. I put the rest in pyrex ramekins, and baked it alongside the tartlets, giving me a decent accompaniment to a meal.
While the sweet potato is baking, you can make the spinach and feta filling, and the shortcrust pastry.
Sweet Potato, Spinach and Feta Quiches - Recipe
- Pre-heat oven to 180'C
Sweet Potato Filling - Ingredients
- 3 sweet potato
- Olive Oil
- 250ml double cream
- 4 eggs
- 3 egg yolks
Note - you can probably use a third of this (so 1 or 2 eggs, and an egg yolk)1) Slice the sweet potato in half, and place on a baking tray, cut sides up
2) Drizzle the sweet potato with olive oil
3) Bake in the oven for 45 minutes4) remove from the oven, and as soon as you can handle it, peel off the skins
5) Mash the sweet potato
6) Pass the mash through a sieve into a stand mixer bowl (you'll need to force it through, but it's worth doing to get a smooth filling). You want 500g of the final mixture. Keep any spare separate.7) Place in the stand mixer with the paddle attachment
8) Add the cream, eggs and egg yolks, and mix on a medium setting until smooth
Spinach and Feta Filling - Ingredients
- 7-8 balls of frozen spinach
- 200g feta cheese
- 1tsp dried thyme
2) Stir and break down while it defrosts and melts
3) Once melted, add the thyme, and continue to cook until all the excess moisture has gone
4) Transfer to a bowl
5) Crumble in the feta and stir, then leave to cool
Shortcrust Pastry - Ingredients
- 300g plain flour
- 125g chilled butter
- 1 egg
- Cold tap water
- Pinch of salt
2) Whizz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs
3) Beat and add the egg, continuing to mix
4) Slowly add water until a dough just begins to form
5) Remove from the processor and knead a few times until you have a smooth dough
6) Flatten to a disc, wrap in cling-film and rest in the fridge for half an hour
Assembly
1) Pre-heat oven to 190'C
2) Take the dough and split into 12 equal parts
3) Roll each part out to 3mm thick (I use batons), and round
4) Line each hole in a 12-hole mini-victoria sponge tin, ensuring the pastry gets out all the way round
5) Using a round pastry cutter the same size as the tin holes, trim each tart
6) Prick the base of each tart with a fork.
7) Line with cling film and baking beans/rice
8) Bake in the oven for 12 minutes
8) Remove the cling-film and baking beans, and return to the oven for another 6 minutes
9) Reduce the oven to 160'C
10) Place a teaspoon full of the cold spinach mixture in each tart
11) Fill each tart with the sweet potato mixture
12) bake in the oven for 20 minutes
13) remove from the oven, and sprinkle a little cayenne pepper over the top of each tart.