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Tartlets, Bouchees and Vol-au-vents
The fine leaf paste or puff-paste being ready there is nothing easier to make than vol-au-vent tartlets like those shown below. Roll out the paste to about a quarter of an inch in thickness, or even thinner, cut out with the double cutter, place the tartlets in pans like biscuits and bake in a brisk oven. They rise to three or four times the heighth of the paste they are cut from. Lift out the little lid made by the cutter in the middle or else push it down and fill the cavity with a spoonful of red currant jelly or lemon honey or any kind of fruit or preserves.
The tin-smiths make and keep for sale the double cutters that cut out rings for doughnuts and jumbles, like two of these in the cut with the inside cutter on a level with the outside and cutting the middle of the paste clear through, but the vol au-vent cutters have to be made to order. The inner cutting edge is a sixteenth of an inch below the outer and only marks out a lid. The small tartlets using up the pie paste remaining after dinner and taking but a teaspoonful of filling make a desirable addition to or substitute for cake in the baskets for supper. The next are larger cutters for oyster patties and vol au-vents of birds etc.
The annexed show forms of bouchees and tartlets that it might be difficult to make plain in words only. The three lower figures are intended to show how the puff-paste is folded, and the three upper <??> article after baking. 1. For the form shown in the middle roll out the finest leaf paste to about an eighth of an inch in thickness. Cut it in squares of about 2 1/2 inches and fold over the four corners to meet in the middle where there should be a drop of water placed to make them sick. Stamp out a round piece of paste like a lozenge and lay on the center. Brush over with a little beaten egg-and-water without wetting the edges of the paste, and bake. The shell can be partly hollowed out when done, and filled with any kind of mince or sweetmeat. 2. For the left hand figure roll out the same as the preceding and cut and fold over the same and then cut pieces out of the four sides to make the shape shown. These leaf tartlets open out and rise as high in baking as the middle figure. Fill the hollows with bright fruit jelly 3. The three cornered bouchees or tarts have the filling--either mince or salpicon, or yellow or red conserve or jelly-baked in them. Roll out a sheet of puff-paste and cut out like biscuits, with a large cutter. Place a teaspoonful of the filling in each wet the edge of the paste and pinch it up in the shape of a three-cornered hat. Brush over with egg-and water and dredge with granulated sugar if for a sweet tart. Bake in a rather slack oven. Beside the foregoing, other shapes may be made by stamping out the sheet of paste with an oval cutter and doubling the flats<??> over like French split rolls, and by doubling over square cuts. These open up like the leaves of a book and jelly or preserves can be inserted in the cavities.
This is a shaping lesson rather than a formula: it assumes you already have puff paste and a set of tinsmith's cutters. Everything here works with modern all-butter puff pastry and two plain round cutters.
- The hinge: cold paste, hot ovenPuff rises on steam from cold butter hitting a fierce oven. Chill the cut shapes for 20-30 minutes before baking, and put them into a fully preheated oven; warm paste slumps and the layers weld shut instead of lifting.
- "Brisk" and "rather slack""Brisk" was generally understood as a hot oven, roughly 425-450F, and "rather slack" as a cooler one, perhaps 325-350F. The recipe gives the small vol-au-vent cases a brisk oven and the filled three-cornered bouchees a rather slack one, but offers no reason for the difference.
- Leaf paste and puff-pasteThe page uses the two terms more or less interchangeably; both are laminated butter pastry, "leaf" referring to the layers. Store-bought all-butter puff pastry stands in for either.
- The double cutter, improvisedThe special cutter scored a lid rather than cutting through. Use a plain round cutter for the outside, then press a smaller cutter a sixteenth of an inch into the surface, not through it. After baking, lift or press down the marked lid.
- "To make them sick"A typesetter's slip for stick. The drop of water at the centre is what holds the four folded corners together during baking.
- Lemon honey and salpiconLemon honey is lemon curd. A salpicon is a savoury dice of meat, poultry or fish bound in a thick sauce, used to fill the larger patty cases.
- Fill jelly coldCurrant jelly and preserves go into the baked, cooled shells. Baked in, jelly liquefies and runs out through the seams; the recipe only bakes filling into the sealed three-cornered form.
- Size and yieldAt 2 1/2-inch squares or small rounds, a standard 1 lb sheet of puff pastry gives roughly 20-24 tartlets, each taking a teaspoonful of filling. Space them well apart on the sheet, since they treble or quadruple in height.
- Egg wash disciplineThe instruction not to wet the cut edges is the important one. Egg on the exposed layers glues them together and the pastry rises lopsided or not at all.
Vol-au-vent - literally "flight in the wind" - is the classic French name for a puff-paste case baked hollow and filled after the fact, and the bouchée is its small, one-bite relative. What makes this page distinctly American is its practicality: it treats the shapes as a way to use up the pie paste left after dinner, and it tells the reader plainly which cutters the tinsmith stocks (the double rings for doughnuts and jumbles) and which must be ordered specially. Jumbles were a common ring-shaped cookie of the period, which is why that cutter was among those the tin-smiths made and kept for sale. The engravings were there to show forms "that it might be difficult to make plain in words only" - pictures supplementing the written directions.