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Small Vols-au-vents, a LA Parisienne

Small pastry shells filled with crème pâtissière, iced with fine sugar, served immediately.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Small Vols-au-vents, a LA Parisienne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare small vol-au-vents using your preferred method.

Make and fill

  1. Prepare hot crème pâtissière as directed.

  2. Fill the vol-au-vents with the crème pâtissière and serve immediately.

Ice and glaze

  1. Ice the edges with fine sugar immediately after removing from the oven.

  2. Hold a heated shovel or salamander over the sugar until it melts and forms a glaze.

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

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Forms the light, flaky, layered shell that holds the filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the crème pâtissière and add richness to the custard filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, melted on the edges, forms a glossy glaze.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the custard a smooth, soft texture.

The step that matters

Holding the heated shovel or salamander over the sugar. Sugar melts and browns quickly under intense heat, so holding the tool too close or too long can scorch it. Keep it moving at a steady distance until the sugar just liquefies into a glaze.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, cream. 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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