Unfortunate Timing

The Cook's Illustrated issue that arrived at my door yesterday, had an update (sub required) of their circa 1994 quiche recipe to match Thomas Keller's (via Michael Rulhman) recipe published in Bouchon (but available free at NPR). They basically just adapt it to work without the purchase of a 9 inch ring mold... which was what I was trying to figure out how to do two weeks ago... before I broke down and bought a 9 inch ring mold. Sigh.

Truth be told, I'm not really that chagrined... we (or really I should say Anna, since she bakes all the cakes in the apartment at the moment) don't own a 9 x 2 cake pan anyway, and the 9 x 1.5 one I tried definitely didn't produce a "deep dish" quiche like Keller's... and while part of that is because I didn't have the crust dangle over the edge (to help hold it up) while it blind baked, I still don't think I'd really get that texture Ruhlman raves about in our shorter pan.

The other changes Cook's made is to avoid fully caramelizing the onions for an hour (just browning them) and to use corn starch to help neutralize said onions from causing the custard to curdle. What I'm not entirely clear on is how much choice number one lead to the solution number two... that is, do fully caramelized onions release the same amount of acid during the quiche baking? Unknown, but since I'm the proud owner of a 9 inch ring mold I'm going to try my next quiche Bouchon-style and maybe find out.