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Puff-Paste Patties, or Small Vol-Au-Vents
Make some puff-paste, give it eight turns, and put it in a cool place or on ice for a little while, then roll it out to the thickness of a quarter of an inch. Take two plain or fluted pastry-cutters, one half the size of the other. Dip the larger into hot water, and stamp out as many rounds as are required. Place these on a baking-sheet, and brush them over with egg, then dip the smaller cutter into hot water, and press it about half through the rounds in the centre. Bake in a quick oven, and when they are done enough take out the small rounds of crust from the top with a sharp knife, and scoop out the crumb and the soft part from the inside. Before sending them to table fill the inside with any one of the different kinds of patty meats. These are composed of savoury minces, made of poultry, game, or fish. Lay the little lid on the top, and serve. Time to bake the patties, eighteen to twenty minutes. PUFF-PASTE RINGS OR PYRAMIDS (a pretty dish for a Juvenile party). Roll out some good puff-paste to the thickness of a quarter of an inch. Stamp it out first in a round the size of the inside of the dish upon which the pastry is to be served, and afterwards in rounds, gradually decreasing in size, until one is cut to lay on the top of the pyramid. Brush these rings over with egg, and bake them separately on baking-sheets till they are done enough. Lay them one on the top of the other in gradation, spread bright-coloured jam of different colours on the rims, and crown the pyramid with a dried apricot, or any suitable ornament. If liked, three or four small pyramids may be made instead of one large one. The rounds may then be formed into rings by stamping a small cutter through the centre, the holes in the rings may be filled with bright-coloured jam, and the pastry may be covered with sifted sugar. Time to bake the rounds, fifteen to twenty-five minutes, according to size.
Two uses of one sheet of puff paste: savoury cases for hot mince, and a tiered sweet dish of jammed rings. Both stand or fall on how the paste is cut and how hot the oven is.
- The hinge: cut cleanly, never dragPuff rises only where the cut edge is clean, so the layers can separate. Use a sharp cutter pressed straight down and lifted straight up, without twisting, or the case will lean and rise unevenly.
- Why the cutter goes into hot waterA hot blade slices through chilled butter layers rather than smearing them. Dip, shake off the water, and cut at once; re-dip between rounds if the paste is very cold.
- Eight turnsA turn is one roll-out and fold. Eight is more than modern practice, which usually stops at six; the extra turns give finer, tighter layers rather than a dramatic lift. Rest the paste chilled at least 20 minutes before the final roll.
- "A quick oven"Roughly 400-450F (200-230C). Puff paste needs the initial blast to turn its water into steam before the butter melts out. A moderate oven produces greasy, flat cases.
- Egg wash disciplineBrush the tops only. Egg running down the cut sides glues the layers together and the patty will not rise.
- The inner cutPressing the smaller cutter halfway through marks the lid. Chill the stamped rounds again for 15-20 minutes before baking so they hold their shape in the oven.
- Filling and temperatureThe cases bake empty and are filled at the last moment. The mince of poultry, game or fish should be freshly made and piping hot going in; a lukewarm filling sitting in a warm case is the one real hazard here. Fill just before serving or the pastry softens within minutes.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities; as a rough guide, paste made with 8 oz (225 g) flour rolled to a quarter inch will give a dozen or more rounds from a 2 1/2-inch cutter.
- The pyramidBake the discs in size order and watch them: the smallest may be done in about fifteen minutes while the base round needs the full twenty-five. Assemble cold, or the jam runs and the tiers slide.
Vol-au-vent means "flight in the wind", a name generally traced to the extreme lightness of the puff case, and the form is associated with early nineteenth-century French pastry cooks whose methods were absorbed into English service. In Cassell's Dictionary, small patties of this kind appear as a fixture of the entree course and of cold suppers, the cases being baked ahead and filled at the last moment. The sweet pyramid recalls the piece montee, the built-up centrepiece meant to be looked at before it was eaten, and its note about a juvenile party suggests that the grand style had reached ordinary family entertaining.