Spinach, beans, cream, eggs… ingredients alone may not be enough for the official dish of the English king’s upcoming coronation festivities. To make your quiche a success, it’s important to respect certain principles and put an end to some preconceived ideas.

As it happens, getting a quiche to turn out perfectly isn’t all that simple. Although this particular recipe comes from the United Kingdom, the French have long laid claim to being at the origin of this savoury tart.

As such, here are a few tips from French experts.

‘Sweat’ the filling

So you thought you did everything right, and even invested in high-quality ingredients to optimise your chances of success. But when you take your quiche out of the oven, it’s so soft that it is difficult to get it out of the mould.

Did your recipe include mushrooms, onions, tomatoes or, as in the Coronation Quiche for King Charles, spinach? These ingredients release liquid, so they need to be cooked separately beforehand so they don’t expel moisture while the quiche is baking.

French chef Cyril Lignac presented a mushroom quiche in his show “Tous en Cuisine”, which he revisited with a filo-based dough. His preparations included sautéing the mushrooms with salt and a dash of olive oil before putting the preparation into the oven.

For those who plan to make a quiche lorraine, top chefs recommend browning the meat (usually bacon) in a frying pan before adding it to the eggs, cream and milk that make up the quiche filling.

Prick or don’t prick?

Whenever you cook a tart, it is commonly accepted that the dough must be pricked with a fork before putting it in the oven. A host of recipe books state this in black and white.

However, the chemist Raphaël Haumont, who works alongside Michelin-starred chef Thierry Marx to apply scientific research to gastronomy, has repeatedly indicated that this technique can have drastic effects on the outcome of your pastry.

The tiny spaces created by the prick holes provide a gateway for the liquid, which then causes the dough to get soft. The result can be catastrophic for tarts with a creamy filling such as quiches lorraines or tarte normande.

After all, according to the scientist, a filling composed of eggs, cream and milk is actually 70% water.

To prevent the dough from getting soggy, you can brush the bottom with a little egg white before doing a pre-bake for three minutes, which will help make it waterproof. This is a tip regularly shared by pastry chefs when preparing fruit tarts, in particular.

Metal moulds and pastry rings

You may have inherited a beautiful ceramic or glass mould from your mother or grandma, but this is not necessarily ideal for preparing a quiche. No matter how aesthetically pleasing it is, the results will be less effective than a pastry ring or a metal mould.

Metal has excellent conductivity, which allows the quiche to be “seared”; while glass is recommended in recipes such as panna cotta, which must rise slowly in temperature during cooking.

So, it’s perfectly fine to use a mould for a quiche – just be aware that there are perforated moulds that allow heat to evaporate better, which will result in a crispier crust.