Mini-quiches… or a souffle?

I've thought for a while that I would like to, someday, make a soufflé.  But I've been put off by fear from listening to stories of collapsed soufflé frustrations.  Except I think I almost made some on my own.  It went like this:  I had some not-so-fresh-anymore fresh spinach that I needed to use up, and I decided quiche sounded good.  Except there wasn't much of the spinach; I had been eating it pretty faithfully.  So I decided on mini-quiches.  And then I got curious about what, exactly, defines a quiche.  According to one source, it's basically a savory custard.  Yum!  That's an even more delicious prospect than my description, "egg pie" (see previous "Quiche" blog).  So with that in mind, I got fancy.  I separated my eggs, beat the whites, and used what I think of as a typical custard approach, like for cream pie.  Everything turned out nice and quiche-y.  But they puffed up in the oven!  How cool!  And the deflated as the cooled… and I realized I'd heard that story before.  Sure enough, when I checked what exactly a soufflé is, I had more or less stumbled upon it with this recipe.  So now I'm not so intimidated.  

Mini souffle-quiches (makes 6)

Pie dough of choice

1/8 C cooked spinach (see notes)

1 1/2 slices lunch-ham, diced

1 egg, separated

~1/4 C milk

1/8 C shredded Italian blend or mozzarella cheese, plus some to top

salt and pepper, to taste

Prebake your pie-crust:  Preheat the oven to 375˚F.  Take a piece of dough about the size of a ping-pong ball and press it into a muffin tin, making sure to evenly distribute along the bottom and up the sides of the cup.  Line with foil to prevent over-browning and weird puffing-up.  You don't need to poke these with a fork, but you can if it makes you feel better.  I've seen recipes that say to do this; I've seen others that say DON'T, like the whole thing will blow up in your face if you do.  I poked some of mine and not others, and by the time they were finished, I couldn't  tell which were which.  Bake ~10 minutes until the crust seems slightly set.  Remove the foil, and bake an additional 10 minutes until golden. Remove from the oven (and turn the thing either off or down) and allow the crusts to cool.  

When the crusts are cooled, preheat the oven to 360˚F (I know this is weird, I was guessing at a good temperature, and this is what my oven and I settled on).  Combine the spinach and diced ham in a small bowl, season with pepper, and set aside.  Whip the egg white to frothiness in another small bowl, and set aside.  Combine the egg yolk and milk in a small saucepan, season with salt and pepper, and heat over medium-high heat, whisking all the while.  When it begins to thicken, begin adding it, 1 spoonful at a time, to the egg whites, whisking/beating them thoroughly with each addition to maintain texture.  After you've added a couple spoonfuls, you can add larger amounts of the yolk mixture.  Stir in the spinach and ham mixture and the cheese.  Spoon into the crusts and bake for 10 minutes.  Sprinkle a little more cheese on top of each mini-quiche, and bake 10 minutes more.  

I love that this was accidentally a soufflé.  It really makes me feel better about making them in the future.  I would recommend trying it as a first soufflé yourself, because if it does collapse, you still have delicious quiche worth eating.  I know, because mine collapsed over time (as they cooled) and kept quite well in the fridge until I re-warmed them.  So go ahead and give them a try: you may surprise yourself!