Mushroom Quiche

Baking a quiche was on my to-do list for quite sometime. I even got my Mom to get me a pie dish (ones with removable bases and fluted sides) - but somehow I was not getting time and motivation enough to bake one. But I had planned it out this week to bake a mushroom quiche this weekend - so right after coming back from office on Friday evening, the 1st task I did was knead the dough for the pie shell. I did lots of blog surfing before I started on my task, and some of the blogposts I read were http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/001753mushroom_quiche.php and http://happyhomebaking.blogspot.com/2007/12/mushroom-pie.html.

I was quite concerned about getting it right, since all the blogs seemed to tell me that its difficult to get it right the 1st time. How I got the pie shell is here:

1 cup flour + 1 tsp salt
~ 100 g cold white butter (I grated this into the flour)
3-4 tbsp ice cold water
I took care to use all ingredients which were cold and also not to knead the dough a lot. As soon as the dough stuck together, I stopped the kneading and packed it in a ziploc bag and put it in the fridge (not the freezer).

This evening, I simply rolled out the dough, then realized that my pie dish is ~ 12 inches, so my dough will not be enough for it:( So ultimately I used the smallest baking disk I have, and lined it with Al foil, which I kept longer than the edges of the dish. After carefully placing the dough in the lined dish, I punctured holes in the base of the shell and baked it for 10 mins at 190C. I did not use beans to weigh down the pie dough to prevent it from rising, but kept small steel dish on top;)

For the filling, I sauted some sliced button mushrooms and finely chopped shallots in olive oil. This I seasoned with salt, pepper, marjoram and dried italian herb mix. I then grated 2 cubes of cheddar cheese on the base of the pie shell, put the mushrooms on top, grated some more cheese on top and poured egg mixture (beat 2 eggs + 1/4 cup milk + 1/4 cup thick cream + salt/pepper) on it. I then placed the dish in a preheated oven and baked it for 25 mins at 190C.

I am quite a happy (and relieved) person after trying out this dish:) This was weighing onmy mind for quite sometime. I really liked the outcome (dont the pics speak for themselves?), and so did my hubby. We had initially decided to eat a couple of slices with evening tea on Saturday and spare a few for Sunday b'fast - but as you can very well realise, we polished up the entire quiche in the evening itself:) My hubby has already planned on making a chicken version of this quiche very soon - and I wait for his
trial.

Super Eggless Yoghurt Cake

Last week, I had an appointment with my Doctor in Mumbai, so we planned to stay with our friends Prateek and his new wife Shivangi for the weekend. Since S is a vegetarian, I baked an eggless cake for her. My previous eggless cake experiement was not very successful, so I called up Mom to pass me one of her yoghurt cake recipes. The ones with 'Milkmaid" somehow turn out very dry for my taste.
I have to accept that the cake turned out very well...appreciated by all who had a piece out of it, including my colleagues in office as well as my hubby's colleagues! Most had assumed that the cake had been bought from a bakery shop!! I guess, this was one of the biggest compliments that I have received as yet.
I am sorry - but I did not click any pics of the cake..but it turned out nicely moist, dense and dark chocolaty brown (obviously bcoz of all the cocoa powder).
I did lots of approximations during the measurements, since I was in a hurry. Also, since we were packing for our short weekend getaway, I wrote it hurriedly someplace I dont remember now:) Some of the approx measurements that I do remember are:
1. 1 1/2 cup plain flour or maida (my cup was 200 ml)
2. 1/2 cup or slightly less cocoa powder
3. 1 small container of amul dahi or yoghurt (I think - 200 g pack)
4. 3/4 cup powdered sugar
5. 1/2 cup refined vegetabel oil
6. 1 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp baking powder
Process -
1. Sift the dry ingredients together
2. Mix curd and sugar together, and to this mixture. add the flour mixture and curd alternately. Also pour in the oil slowly and mix with the hand-held whisk. I just used up one mixing bowl and one whisk to prepare the batter...wasnt that cool!:)
3. The batter turned out slightly thick..Mom had asked me to add a few tbps of milk if the batter was not in pouring consistency, but then I was not in a very patient mood, so I simply dumped the thickish batter into the greased/dusted 9" round baking dish. I baked this initially at 220 degress for 10 mins and then lowered the tenmperature to 180 for the other 20 mins.

I will be making this cake again very soon..since not only was it super-easy to bake, super-dense and moist to eat, but also because it is quite healthy, with no eggs and minimal oil. Just take care of the quality of curd you use for the cake - I purposefully did not use home-made curd for this,since I wanted to thick creamy curd to give the cake its moistness.