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Vol-au-vents (Roll puff paste one-third inch)
Roll puff paste one-third inch thick, mark an oval on paste with cutter or mould, and cut out with sharp knife, first dipped in flour. Brush over near the edge with cold water, put on a rim three-fourths inch wide, press lightly, chill, and bake. Vol-au-vents require for baking forty-five minutes to one hour. During the first half-hour they should be covered, watched carefully, and frequently turned. The paste cut from centre of rim should be rolled one-quarter inch thick, shaped same size as before rolling, chilled, baked, and used for cover to the Vol-au-vent.
This is a technique note rather than a full recipe: it assumes you already have puff paste made and chilled, and tells you how to build and bake the shell. The whole thing hinges on cutting cleanly and keeping the paste cold.
- The cut is everythingA dull or dragging knife smears the layers together at the edge and the case rises crooked or not at all. Flour the blade, press straight down, and do not twist the cutter used for marking.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe specifies no temperature. For a modern oven, a hot start of about 450F until the case is fully risen and set, roughly the first 15 to 20 minutes, then a drop to about 350F for the remainder, will dry the interior without burning the outside.
- "Covered" and "frequently turned"Covering means laying a sheet of paper or an inverted pan over the case so the top does not colour before the middle cooks. Turning compensated for the hot spots of a coal range; in a modern oven, rotating once or twice is enough.
- Thickness in practiceOne-third inch is thicker than commercial frozen puff sheets, which run about an eighth of an inch. Two sheets pressed together still fall short of a third of an inch, so a rolled block of your own paste is the surer route; the rim strip is cut from paste of the same thickness.
- Chilling is not optionalThe assembled case must go back to the refrigerator, ideally 30 minutes, until the butter is firm. Warm paste slumps and the rim collapses inward instead of climbing.
- The lidThe oval cut from the centre of the rim is rolled thinner, a quarter inch, so it bakes flat and light rather than doming. Bake it alongside the case; it will be done well before the shell is.
- Total timeForty-five minutes to an hour is right for a large case. Small individual shells, three inches or so, need 20 to 25 minutes.
- Yield and fillingThe recipe gives no size or yield; a large case will serve several as a first course. Fill only at the last moment, with something hot and thick, creamed chicken, sweetbreads, oysters or mushrooms, since a thin sauce turns the base to paste within minutes.
Vol-au-vent translates roughly as "flight in the wind," a name generally traced to the lightness of the risen case and traditionally credited to Antonin Carême's kitchen in early nineteenth-century Paris, though the attribution is repeated more often than it is documented. The form is an unforgiving one: the shell has no filling to hide behind, so a case that rises evenly and holds its walls shows the butter was folded in cold and the layers never crushed. It also suited the period's formal dinners, giving cooks an elegant vessel for the creamed and minced dishes, chicken, sweetbreads, lobster, oysters, of the kind served at the entrée course.