Go to the Recipe: Ultimate Cheese Quiche
Where is the chart that compares all the pie crusts?
Hi. If you read my comment on the Macau egg tart, do essentially what grant did here.
What if I have sodium citrate but not velveeta. Couldn't I get a similar result without having to use velveeta?
https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/parametric-pie-dough
Maybe so, when melting cheese into the milk and cream, or make your own Velveeta style melting cheese. https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/melty-cheese-parametric-analysis
Sorry for the stupid question, but how long will the bottom crust of the quiche stay crispy do you think?
Valid question and not sure, but it will as long as it does. Estimation of 2 days. It will still attract moisture from the custard and environment but reheating will help of course. It will still maintain the best texture out of any quiche crust out there.
Do you think any of your “melting cheeses” could be subbed in 1:1 for the velveeta? Like a Ricotta (CS Melty) and Gruyère?
What's the best way to reheat?
For sure.
Grant likes to air fry it as described in last step above under make ahead and storage. This is for slices and is the best way we do it in the studio. If you don't have an air fryer then a hot oven (400°F) is the next best thing.
Am I missing the link? Could you tell me how to get the pan Grant spends time fawning about.
I am from the USA, and find the measurements perplexing. When you say 400 g whole milk, do you weigh it for grams, or what? Also salt in g.? (you do give the American equivalent there, but I'd like to learn so I can use all your recipes) Thanks... maybe there is a conversion table somewhere? What types of measuring tools do you use?
I dont have velveeta here in the Philippines any substitute?
So for those in the uk- I subbed velveeta for Waitrose’s fondue cheese which is ‘Swiss cheese’ with lots of other additives to make it melt nice- it worked well and made a very nice quiche (though I don’t have a point of comparison with the velveeta ). CS- would be really interested in an international substitute!
Hi Trina- so the thing I live about CS is that it’s all weight measures (and metric because I live in the uk). So when they say 400g of whole milk, they literally weigh it, no volume measurement. Most scales you can buy will have a metric setting but if you want you can inter convert with imperial measurements. Lots of calculators online.
We recommend weight by the gram for everything we do. The other options that are there will get you close, but if you want to replicate exactly what we have developed you have to measure by weight.
Would the recipe for the egg bites work for this quiche as well? The version with the cottage cheese and heavy cream. https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/your-favorite-sous-vide-egg-bites-at-home
LOVE the style of this video! It was super informative - a real deep dive into pie crust. THANK YOU!
"This was probably the best quiche I've ever had"
- wife on mother's day
The pie crust is the best I've ever had. Every bite has that amazing flavor that's usually only on the very top edges.
Can the crust be baked ahead of timed and filled day-of? Any suggestions for storing just the baked crust until ready to cook?
Yes, you can bake the crust a day or two ahead of time. Keep wrapped well at room temperature or in an airtight container with s lid.
Crust and consistency of the quiche was excellent. The velveeta flavor was overpowering though.
Having trouble with the lack of crust browning. Even bought the recommended pan with holes. Even after close to 90 minutes the bottom of the crust is soaking wet and the top sides are nicely browned and blistered. Do you think that the beans I use as pie weights could be the issue? Using small black eyed beans with recommended weight amount. If I remove the weights then the bottom does eventually get browned, but the sides end up becoming almost burnt and the bottom puffs up a lot. Kind of at loss about how to fix this
Sounds like the pie dough is too thick in the shell. The dough will still be underbaked when removing the paper/foil and weights. The beans are not the issue as you can use anything to weigh it down, even load of salt. There is a fine line to walk once removing he weights and baking fully. If the sides and top is thinner than the center or bottom it will bake unevenly. You can drop the oven temp even more during the last part of the bake to prevent becoming overly dark.
When the bottom puffs up after removing the weights, the bottom has not been baked long enough. When properly rolled and baked it will puff minimally if at all.
Made this for Thanksgiving brunch this morning and it turned out so good! Awesome flaky crust and great cheesy and egg flavor!
Made this morning for Thanksgiving brunch and it came out so good! Awesome crust and great cheesy egg flavor!
Two questions:
2. Can I make the cheese base a day before and re-warm to add it to the eggs and bake quickly on day 2?
The video and recipe are detailed and easy to follow. The custard taste is underwhelming for the effort required to make this quiche. Unfortunately, the custard doesn’t really taste of Gruyère. It tastes like watered down Velveeta. Is there a way to up the Gruyère flavor without impacting the custard texture?
Make our gruyere melting cheese and swap in for the weight of the cheeses. https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/melty-cheese-parametric-analysis
Oof. So hoping you can help Matthew. I’m a pretty avid baker and followed your recipe step for step, gram for gram. Used the exact pie pan you recommended and even replaced my immersion blender with your recommended one. All things looked great after baking the crust per every last detail of instruction and for 90 minutes. Had a gorgeous brown color, thickness looked perfect. Added my custard, put it in the oven, went to rotate my pan half way through and almost all of my custard had leaked out of my crust and into the cookie sheet. I am so confused. It’s obviously an issue with crust but too thin? It was truly almost a 1/4” thick. Underdone? I had dry blisters and as noted, gorgeous color. Now I just have a sheet pan of crustless quiche. Any advice would be so welcomed.
Hello Jillian, if any custard leaks out it means the was a weak spot in the crust or a hole that allowed it to flow. Up until the rotation, was the filling still inside? Maybe the rotation tweaked the pan and ripped or cracked? When lining shells with pastry the corners are going to be an area of concern. If there are any cracks when placing in the raw pie dough it may present a problem. Once baked, any tear or hole will constrict and open up. You can repair with raw dough, if noticed after baking. Was the pan rotated on the tray or was the tray rotated?
It had all leaked out by the time I went to rotate. Never got to actually rotate it because by then, it was clear I had an error at some point. I had a really beautiful silky custard, just a sheet pan of it instead of in the crust. lol. It was a slow leak, that grew, in the first 15 minutes of baking. Small at first, making me think I had maybe just spilled some in the pan when moving it to the oven. But by half way through, I had very very little custard left in my crust. Never got to finish baking because it had all leaked out.
I think maybe my butter wasn’t incorporated enough? My pieces of butter were bigger than shown in the video after going back through the directions again. I’m thinking that caused a larger piece of butter to melt and cause a hole? What do you think? I’m very anxious to try again.
Yep. Classic butter chunk making a hole. Save some raw dough to perform a patch surgery once baked or make sure you are really making butter chunks smaller like rice when making the dough. For wet fillings you want a mealy dough that can withstand the wet filling and give structure. So, incorporate that butter well before adding liquid to make dough. This will make your dough more resilient. Happy baking!
Eggs, room temperature?
And don't dock it?
Thank you for all the techniques but could you please ask Chef not to touch his hair then put his hands on the ingredients without washing his hands? Totally gross and disgusting.
I live in a country where I cannot get Velveeta. I can however get Sodium Citrate. Is there a substitution proportion I can do there?
This is a fair bit of extra work but have you seen our work on melting cheeses HERE?
Disclaimer: I haven't tried it but can't think of a reason why this wouldn't work. If you made your own melting cheese and substituted it for the weight of Velveeta in the recipe I bet it would work great and taste a heck of a lot better than using Velveeta.
Used sodium citrate (3% relative to milk), Gruyère. Pulled the quiche at 155°, and it didn’t fully set, even after 2 hrs in the fridge. Delicious, but a bit loose/runny. Should I have gone to a higher temp, I’m guessing? Recipe was the same otherwise.
Hey Nate,
If I'm reading you correctly, you used all Gruyère, no Velveeta, and 3% sodium citrate against the total of milk? Assuming that, let's do some quick math:
3% of 400=12g
How much sodium citrate is in Velveeta? There's no official source, but let's assume common usage around 2.5%. 2.5% of 170g Velveeta=4.375
So, assuming you were shooting for an all-Gruyère quiche, then you may have used too much sodium citrate, which would give a very emulsified, but runny texture. Additionally, Velveeta has two other emulsifying salts in play: sodium hexametaphosphate (SHMP) and trisodium phosphate (TSP). SHMP is great for emulsifying and giving a more elastic texture, and TSP is a very strong calcium chelator that often contributes to the slicing quality of processed cheeses (both salts raise pH more than sodium citrate, which is key for that texture).
Sodium citrate excels for cheese sauces, but because it emulsifies so well, the cheese sauce will always flow, not set and slice. As a first step, I would decrease the amount of sodium citrate. I can't comment on % use for SHMP or TSP if that first strategy fails.
Alternatively, you could use that smaller amount of sodium citrate (say, 4g) to emulsify the Gruyere, but use something reliable, like kappa carrageenan at 0.3% against the total liquid amount, which would likely give you that sliceable, flan-like texture.
Hope this helps!
Ya’ll lost me with the Velveeta. Really guys…let’s get back to real food, and the best results we can have with that. If I want more processed food, I’ll buy it in the store, not spend hours trying to make it at home.
How about a real recipe for quiche please?
(Been a subscriber for 5+ years but you may be losing me….)
I can understand where you're coming from Pami and sorry this one missed the mark for you. We do appreciate your support over the last 5+ years.
If you're looking for a quiche recipe thats more along the lines of a REALLY GOOD classic version have you seen our Quiche Lorraine recipe? Happy to answer any questions you might have about that recipe to make it work for your desired quiche.
Can I add additional cheeses to this recipe like a little parm or Sharp cheddar?
