Curried Pumpkin & Carrot Quiches

my o' my...what is this?

what did I miss?

why - hello Mister Quiche!

what did you do to receive such bliss...

to be sealed with Miss Pumpkin & Miss Carrot's kiss!

steam & mash the pumpkins & carrots

making the cream cheese crust

using a 10cm wide & 1cm deep tart tin
(ideally, a deeper tin ~2.5cm, should be used but nevertheless this is cute)

rolling the dough into the tins and piercing with a fork to create tiny holes as "ventilators" for the steam to escape

baking & baked...the crust is absolutely lovely

the oomph: curried onions and garlic - the bed of the quiche

the filling: eggy pumpkin & carrot cream

attempting a lattice top with the remaining dough

mama mia !!

bonjour, Mister Quiche!

enjoy with buttercup lettuces, toasted pumpkin seeds & thai salmon patty

Makes 8 Mister Quiches 

Ingredients (cream cheese pastry)

- 140g plain flour (i ran out of plain flour so i replaced with self-raising flour, not quite appropriate but it gave the quiches a pretty puffy crust, just a tad croissanty)

- 45g instant oats

- 125g cream cheese, chilled and cubed 

- 125g butter, chilled and chopped

Ingredients (eggy pumpkin & carrot cream)

- 1 tablespoon olive oil

- 1 medium onion, chopped

- 3 garlic cloves, chopped

- 1 teaspoon of curry powder

- 3 eggs

- 125ml whipping cream

- 230g pumpkin, peeled, chopped, cubed, steamed, mashed

- 120g carrot, peeled, chopped, cubed, steamed, mashed

- 2 tablespoons toasted pumpkin seeds

- Generous sprinkles of black pepper

Methods (cream cheese pastry)
1. Preheat oven to 210 degree C. 
2. Prepare 8 tart tins (if you're not using the nonstick kind, grease or line with baking paper.
3. Sift the flour, stir in the oats and add the cream cheese and butter. 
4. Use fingertips to rub the ingredients together for 2 minutes or until mixture is smooth and forms a ball.
5. Knead the dough on a lightly flour surface until it no longer sticks to your hands, for about 10 seconds. 
6. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
7. Divide the pastry into 8 portions, roll out and line the tins. 
8. Bake for 15 minutes or until lightly browned. 
9. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.
10. Reduce the oven heat to 180 degree C.

Methods (eggy pumpkin & carrot cream)
1. Heat the oil in a tiny frying pan, add the onion and garlic, frying for 5 minutes until soft and fragrant. 
2. Stir in the curry powder and fry for 1 minute. 
3. Divide among the 8 crusts and spread evenly (this is the curried onion & garlic bed).
4. Combine the eggs, cream, pumpkin & carrots in a bowl and whisk until combined. 
5. Pour evenly over the 8 crusts and sprinkle with pumpkin seeds.
6. Bake for 20 minutes or until the filling has set. 

Enjoy !

How was it?
The cream cheese crust - lovely ! Its texture is a tad that of croissant, slightly flaky and smells heavenly with a whiff of savoury and buttery aroma. The taste is great as well - not too greasy with a pleasant butter flavour. BUT - the crust was a little too thick and rose quite a bit in the oven  -thank you but no thank you, self-raising flour - so there wasn't that much space left for the filling. so I only managed to use 1/3 of the filling (the remaining 2/3 I made quiches out of bread).

The filling - not too bad but could do with more curry oomph !

Better it up!
I would use these tins again in future...but I'll stick to the recipe: use plain flour & also roll the dough thinner so I reckon I'll probably be able to make 10 - 12 of Mister Quiches per recipe. There's more room for oats in the crust: 120g flour + 65g instant oats - that should work for some hearty goodness. Add 2 tablespoon of curry powder and 1 teaspoon of paprika to the eggy pumpkin & carrot cream for more oomph! 

For my future bakes of thie recipe, i'll either
1) double the crust recipe, or
2) half the filling recipe
depending on the crowd, but if you're using deeper tart tins, then this recipe ratio should not be an issue.

Verdict

Recipe adapted from