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Dessert

Vol-au-vents, Orange

A pastry filled with orange quarters in a clear syrup flavored with brandy and cochineal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and arrowroot work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vol-au-vents, Orange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the shells

  1. Prepare the vol-au-vents and bake them until golden.

  2. Let them cool.

Make the orange syrup

  1. Thinly peel the rind from the oranges and place it in a saucepan with the sugar and water.

  2. Boil until it forms a clear syrup.

  3. Thicken the syrup by mixing the arrowroot with a little cold water.

  4. Pour the arrowroot mixture into the boiling syrup while stirring.

  5. Add a splash of brandy and a few drops of cochineal.

Assemble and fill

  1. Remove the white skin from the oranges, discard the seeds, and cut the fruit into quarters.

  2. Pour the syrup over the orange quarters.

  3. Once cooled, the mixture is ready to fill the vol-au-vents.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Orange + arrowroottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Arrowroot + brandytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together141 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + arrowroottop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Oranges
Provide the main fruit flavour and the segments that make up the filling.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps it set into a clear, thick glaze as it cooks.
Arrowroot
Thickens the syrup into a glossy, clear coating without clouding it.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm flavour to the syrup.

The step that matters

Adding the arrowroot to the syrup. Arrowroot must be mixed into cold water first and then stirred into the boiling syrup. Added dry or to still liquid, it clumps and thickens unevenly, leaving lumps instead of a smooth, clear glaze.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, sugar, brandy):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Beetrootfits about as well
  3. Arrowrootthe original
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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