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Shell Pies, or Vol-au-vents of Fruit
Crusts of pies that may be baked beforehand and filled with stewed fruit only as required.
Cover the pie pan with a thin rolled sheet of puff-paste, not made thinner in the middle as for other pies but left of even thickness and smooth. Cut a mark half way through the paste all round the rim of the plate, with the point of a knife and also score across the middle. when this crust has been baked the lid formed by the cutting can be lifted off in two halves and replaced when the pie is filled with fruit.
This is a technique rather than a fixed formula: a puff-paste shell baked empty, with its own lid cut in before baking so the pie can be opened, filled and closed at the last minute. A few things the original assumes you already know.
- The hinge: score, do not cut throughThe knife goes halfway into the paste only, around the rim of the plate and across the centre. Cut all the way through and the lid separates during baking and the shell distorts; too shallow a score and you will not be able to lift the halves off cleanly once baked.
- Even thickness mattersThe original notes only that, unlike other pies, this sheet is not rolled thinner in the middle but left of even thickness and smooth. No thickness is specified; the point appears to be that the sheet is functioning as a lid rather than a base and needs to rise uniformly.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given, and the original does not even name an oven degree. Puff paste generally wants a hot oven; if you are working from modern practice, something in the region of 425F, eased back once the paste has risen and set, is the usual approach. Too slow an oven lets the butter melt out before the layers lift.
- The pie panThe original just says 'pie pan'. A shallow metal pie plate with a flat rim is the likely intention and works well; the rim is what the scored line follows.
- Keep the paste coldChill the shaped, scored crust for 20 to 30 minutes before it goes in. Warm butter in the layers is the usual reason a vol-au-vent shell comes out flat and greasy rather than flaky.
- Fill at the last minuteThe whole point of the method is that crust and fruit meet late; the original says the shell is filled 'only as required'. Fill with stewed fruit that is thick and no more than warm, replace the two lid halves, and serve. A shell filled and held will soften.
- Fruit consistencyStewed fruit for this needs to be reduced or lightly thickened with cornstarch. Loose syrup will run under the lid halves and through the rim.
- Yield and storageThe original gives no yield or keeping time. Baked shells are best used the day they are made; they can be re-crisped briefly in a moderate oven, and are better kept dry at room temperature than refrigerated.
Vol-au-vent means "flight in the wind," said by tradition to be a French pastry-cook's joke about how little the risen puff-paste case weighs, and the term is generally traced to the early nineteenth-century Paris kitchens associated with Carême. What is described here is a simplified adaptation of it: instead of building a deep case from stacked rings of paste, the pastry cook covers a plate with a single sheet, scores a lid into it, and bakes a batch off in advance. Crusts made ahead this way can be filled as required, and fruit that had been stewed in quantity could be spooned into a waiting shell in seconds. It also does away with the bottom crust altogether, and with it any risk of the bottom turning to paste under the juice.