Chäschüächli – the crispy apéro classic

For the dough, cut the cold butter into cubes and add the flour and salt. Rub everything together with your hands until the butter is no longer recognisable. Finally add the cold water and mix everything into a dough. Wrap the finished pastry in cling film and place it in the fridge for 30 minutes. Then preheat the oven to 200 °C fan.

After 30 minutes you can take the pastry out of the fridge and roll it out to a thickness of 3 mm using the rolling guides. For this recipe we used the perforated silicone mat with Ø 6.5 cm – for that you need a fluted, round cookie cutter with Ø 9 cm. The Chäschüächli can be made in all sorts of sizes, though; the perforated silicone mat comes in many diameters.

You can easily cut the perforated silicone mat in half with scissors so that the mats have enough room on two household baking trays. Thanks to the many small holes in the mat, your bakes turn out nice and even and crispier. Now place the cut-out pastry circles into the moulds and press the dough into the shape.

Prick the base of each individual small cake lightly with a fork so that it doesn't puff up during baking.

For the custard, first put the eggs together with the wheat starch into a bowl and stir everything until no more lumps are visible. Then add all the remaining ingredients. At the end, be sure to taste a little of the custard and season it a bit more if needed.

Now you can fill each of your small cakes with 10 g of grated Gruyère and season with a little pepper. Alternatively, other savoury fillings work too – for example spinach-bacon, vegetables, leek-ham, onion-bacon or spinach-mushroom. Or you can bake sweet tarts with fresh berries and fruit.

Place both your baking mats on a baking tray lined with baking paper before you start filling. Pour the custard into each individual small cake using a one-litre container and make sure that all the cheese is under the custard. Bake the Chäschüächli at 200 °C fan for about 12–15 minutes.