I baked a quiche that will make you want to eat more!

May 15, 2025

1. How did quiche come about?

Around the 16th century, there were days when people in the Lorraine region of France would make bread together.
In the days when not every home had an oven, people had to help each other bake bread.
On bread-making days, the women work all day.
However, even when you're busy, meals are essential, and there are things you can quickly prepare and eat at times like that.

That is quiche.

However, it is a little different from the quiche we are familiar with today.

Perhaps the biggest difference is the fabric.

In the old days, leftover bread dough was used.
It is said that the quiche of that time was made by spreading a mixture of eggs and cream called miguène on it and baking it in the residual heat of the bread oven.

Miguène is an dough made from eggs and cream.

Today, quiche often contains onions, but that wasn't the case in the beginning.

If you happen to find some green onions in your garden, you might think, "I'll try using them as a topping today."
So it seems like it wasn't something that was guaranteed to be included.

Considering that thin bread dough was used at the time, the quiche of that time was perhaps more similar to pizza.

In Alsace, next to Lorraine, there is something similar to the old quiche.

It's called "Tarte Flambé".

The bread dough is rolled out thinly and topped with cream, fresh cheese, bacon, and onion, then baked in a wood-fired oven.

I've tried it myself and it goes well with local Alsatian beer.

Quiche was originally made with bread dough, but as people's lives improved, they began to prefer butter-based pâtés.

Nowadays, quiche is considered a warm appetizer.

However, in the Lorraine region, it is a dish that is often eaten when inviting close friends to one's home, and is said to be served as a main dish rather than an appetizer.

Perhaps it is a remnant of the time when they made bread while enjoying chatting, but for the people of Lorraine, quiche is a dish that connects people and is eaten to share both good and bad times, and it may be that this is a dish that remains deep in their hearts.

The dough has gotten richer over the years, but recently, with health concerns, lighter quiches seem to be more popular.

For example, the cream used in dough is often half fat, or is substituted with milk.

Classic quiche is delicious but can sometimes feel heavy, so I put a little ingenuity into making a lighter quiche.

2. How to make the quiche less heavy

I want something that is relatively easy to make and has a nice crispy crust.
And a quiche that doesn't feel heavy even after eating is what I consider to be ideal.

With that in mind, the dough is made with olive oil instead of butter.
For the batter, I replaced half of the cream with strained yogurt.

Benefits of using olive oil in dough

*1. It's easy to do.

I think the most tedious part of making quiche is making the dough.
You need to be especially careful about the temperature in the summer so the butter doesn't melt.
However, you don't have to worry about this when making quiche with olive oil.

All you have to do is mix the ingredients together in your spare time, flatten them out, wrap them in plastic wrap, put them in a Ziploc bag, and let them sit in the fridge.

It will be easier to spread if you let it come to room temperature an hour before using it.

*2. Makes the dough crispy

The amount of olive oil used is about one-third of the amount of butter normally used, so the dough is not heavy and the finished product is crispy.

What's more, the olive oil has a pleasant aroma and is healthy too.