Skip to main content
Main

Vol-au-vents

A puff pastry shell filled with a sauce of sweetbreads, truffles, mushrooms, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Truffle and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Vol-au-vents

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the pastry

  1. Divide the butter into four parts.

  2. Rub three-quarters of the butter into the flour, mixing with a little water to form a dough.

  3. Roll out the dough.

  4. Layer the remaining butter over the dough.

  5. Fold and roll again, repeating with the last two quarters of butter.

  6. Chill the dough for one hour.

  7. Roll and cut the dough into four parts, shaping one-third for the top and two-thirds for the bottom of the vol-au-vent.

  8. Cut the pieces into an oval shape.

  9. Use leftover dough to create flower and leaf shapes for garnish.

  10. Cut out the center of the top piece.

  11. Fill the center with the pastry flowers and leaves.

  12. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes until puffed and golden.

Make the filling

  1. Remove the flowered center and hollow out the crust.

  2. In a saucepan, make a sauce by rubbing together one tablespoon of butter and one tablespoon of flour.

  3. Boil the milk and cream, then mix with the butter and flour to create a rich sauce.

  4. Add the sweetbreads, truffles, mushrooms, nutmeg, white pepper, and salt to the sauce.

  5. Stir and boil for twenty minutes.

  6. Fill the hollow pastry with the mixture and serve hot.

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. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Layered through the dough to create flaky, separated pastry layers as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the dough structure and thickens the sauce with the butter.
Sweetbreads
Provide the tender, rich meat that forms the main body of the filling.
Truffles
Add a strong, earthy aroma to the creamy filling.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Chilling and laminating the dough. Keeping the butter cold between folds creates separate layers; if it softens into the dough, the pastry will not puff well in the oven.

“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.

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes