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Croquettes, Vol-Au-Vent Of
Make some extremely light puff paste; roll it out (very evenly, or it will not rise properly) about a quarter of an inch thick, stamp it to the size and shape of the bottom of the dish in which you intend to send it to table; roll the paste again, and stamp another shape, four times as thick as the first; place it on the top of the other, fastening it at the edges with yolk of egg. Make a slight incision nearly through the pastry all round the top about an inch from the edge. Bake it in a brisk oven (this is important) until lightly browned, at once take out the paste inside the centre, remove the soft crumb from the middle, but be careful not to break the edges. Keep it in a warm place, and, when wanted, fill it with croquettes (see CROQUETTES AU FINANCIERE) Time to bake, twenty minutes. Probable cost, depends upon the size. A vol-au-vent should never be made large.
This is the shell only — a puff pastry case built in two stamped layers, hollowed while hot and filled at the last minute. The filling is a cross-reference to croquettes au financière elsewhere in the book.
- The hinge: cut the lid while the case is hotThe scored top must be lifted and the damp crumb scooped out the moment the pastry leaves the oven, as directed. Let it cool first and the steam condenses, the interior goes soggy and the lid will not come away cleanly.
- "A brisk oven"425–450F. The book flags this as important for good reason: puff paste needs fierce initial heat to turn the water in the butter layers to steam and drive the lift. A moderate oven gives a greasy, squat case.
- ThicknessThe base is 1/4 inch. The upper piece is "four times as thick" — a full inch of raw paste, which will rise considerably in the oven. Roll both pieces evenly; uneven paste rises crooked and the lid sits badly.
- Stamping and the incisionStamp cleanly with a floured cutter rather than dragging a knife, which seals the layered edges and blocks the rise. The scored line an inch in from the edge should go nearly but not fully through, so it acts as a lid rather than a hole.
- Egg yolk as glueYolk brushed on the join of the two discs is the adhesive. Keep it off the cut outer edges — egg there sets hard and pins the layers down.
- Chill before bakingNot in the original, but assume it: twenty to thirty minutes in the refrigerator after assembly firms the butter and gives a straighter rise.
- Size and yield"A vol-au-vent should never be made large" is sound: a wide case is liable to sag under the filling. Small individual cases are the modern norm and will bake faster than the twenty minutes given here.
- Filling and holdingFill only at the moment of serving, with the filling hot. The case can be held in a warm oven, but a filled vol-au-vent softens within minutes.
Vol-au-vent means "flight in the wind", a name that describes how little the baked case weighs relative to its bulk; its invention is traditionally credited to Antonin Carême in early nineteenth-century Paris, though the attribution is repeated far more often than it is documented. What is clear is that by the time Cassell's was compiled the form had become a fixture of the English dinner table, a hollow pastry vessel filled with whatever ragoût, salpicon or croquette mixture the kitchen had to hand — which is why this entry gives no filling at all and simply points the reader elsewhere in the dictionary. The warning against making one too large is the voice of experience: a wide case with a heavy filling sags in the middle.