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Västerbotten Pie

Local name : Västerbottenspaj

A Swedish shortcrust tart filled with aged northern cheese and cream, baked until just set and served with cherry tomatoes.

#tart#cheese#eggs#shortcrust#celebration
Västerbotten Pie

Photo : Holger.Ellgaard · CC BY-SA 4.0

Prep
30 min
Cook
45 min
Total
75 min
Serves
6
Difficulty
Medium

Method

  1. Rub the flour with the diced cold butter and salt until it looks like coarse sand.
  2. Add the iced water, gather the dough into a ball and rest it in the fridge for 30 minutes.
  3. Roll the dough into a 24 cm tin, prick the base and blind bake for 15 minutes at 200 degrees.
  4. Grate the cheese finely and whisk it with the eggs, cream and pepper.
  5. Pour the filling into the baked shell and bake for 30 minutes at 180 degrees. The centre should still wobble.
  6. Rest for 15 minutes, scatter with chopped chives and serve with the cherry tomatoes.

The cheese brings plenty of salt already. Taste the filling before you season: in most cases pepper alone balances the cream.

Nutrition · per serving

Calories
535 kcal
Protein
18.8 g
Fat
41.4 g
Carbohydrate
22.6 g
Fibre
1.3 g

An estimate computed from the recipe quantities and the USDA food composition database. Real values vary with the products used.

Frequently asked questions

What can replace Västerbotten cheese?

Aged comté, as the recipe suggests, is the closest match: you need a long-matured cheese, dry and crystalline, with a frankly salty flavour. A young, soft cheese releases water and gives a bland, sloppy filling.

Should I salt the filling?

Taste first, and usually no. The aged cheese brings plenty of salt already, and 250 g to three eggs is a lot of it. Black pepper is generally enough to balance the cream.

Why blind-bake the pastry case?

The egg and cream filling is liquid and would soak into raw shortcrust. Fifteen minutes at 200 degrees with the base pricked sets a crust that stays crumbly underneath. Just watch that it does not colour too much, since it goes back in for another thirty minutes.

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