Sunday mornings are my favorite. Sleeping in as long as the dog will let us, gradually waking up, and eventually a nice breakfast. Our Sunday usual consist of a dish based on eggs, fresh fruit or bread. With a little planning, and an hour or two, quiche will fit the bill just fine.

The recipe and detailed instructions are at the end of this post. For this recipe, we need cake flour, butter, water, spinach, milk, cream, eggs, salt, black pepper, and feta cheese. Looks like we have it all. Ready, set, bake…

First we are going to make the pate brisee dough. Combine the flour and salt in a food processor and run it on low for about 5 seconds to combine. Add the butter and pulse until coarse meal (about 15 seconds). Add the water and egg and process until dough forms (about 5-10 seconds). Put the dough in between a piece of parchment paper folded in half and use the palm of your hands to form a thin disc. Place the dough in the refrigerator for about half an hour or until chilled.

Roll out the pate brisee on a floured surface until 1/8″ thick. To make sure you have enough dough to fill the tart pans place them on top of the dough. The dough should reach about an inch around the perimeters of the tins.

If the dough is sticking to the surface your pate brisee is not cold enough. Stick the dough back into the refrigerator for about 15 minutes. If your pate brisee dough is cracking when you roll it out the dough is too cold. Let the dough warm up for a minute or two and try again.

The recipe makes an 11″ tart. There are only two of us, there is no way we could eat all of it. I decided to make two 4″ quiches instead. I divided the dough in three, flattened each in parchment paper, and put two-thirds of the dough in a ziplock bag in the freezer for future use. It left a lot of leftover dough, I probably could have divided the dough into fourths and been fine.

With this dough, and this is true of most tart dough, roll the dough onto the roller so you can pick it up and quickly place it on top of the tart tin. The quicker you do this the better results you will have. Do not press down on the top of the tins. Carefully lift up the dough from the side and use a finger to press the dough down in the corner of the inside of the tin working all the way around the tin. With the rolling pin gently roll over the top of the tin and remove the scraps. This will give you a nice even top to your crust.

Now for the fun part. This technique is called “blind baking.” Line the tart shell with plastic wrap and fill with dry beans or pie weights. Take the ends of the plastic wrap and ball them up in the center of the tart. Make sure none of the plastic wrap is touching any metal (it will stick and burn to metal). If you are uncomfortable using plastic wrap you can use parchment paper to do this. Bake the tart shell at 350°F until very light golden brown, about 15 minutes. Remove the plastic wrap and weights and cool completely.

I use kidney beans for my weights. The cost less than a dollar a bag and they can be used over and over again.

Saute the onion, in the butter, until translucent. Add the spinach and cook until wilted. I used fresh spinach, but you could use frozen too. If you’re using frozen you may need to drain any excess liquid when your done sauteing.

Combine the milk and cream in a saucepan and bring to a simmer.

Combine the eggs, egg yolks, salt, and pepper in a bowl, stirring with a whisk.

Now we are going to temper the hot milk and eggs. Add about one-third of the hot milk mixture to the eggs while whisking constantly. Add the remaining hot milk mixture, stirring to incorporate. If your eggs cook you either did not whisk the whole time or you added too much hot of the hot milk at a time to the egg mixture. As long as you whisk the whole time you should be fine.

This recipe is very versatile and can easily be modified. Just keep the egg and milk mixture the same and add whatever you want in your quiche. I kept true to the recipe except for using ricotta cheese and blue cheese instead of the feta cheese.

Spread the spinach mixture in the tart shell and sprinkle the cheese on top. Pour the custard mixture over the top. Be careful not to overfill the crust or it will go down the sides of the shell into the tin and create a mess to clean up.

Bake at 350°F/177°C and bake just until the custard is set, about 45 minutes.