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Dessert

Small Vols-au-vents, a LA Howitt

A small pastry filled with a thickened cream, sugar, butter, flour, eggs, lemon rind, and crushed ratifias.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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 Howitt

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Combine the boiling cream or cream and milk mixture in a clean saucepan.

  2. Stir over a gentle fire until thick.

  3. Remove from heat and stir well.

  4. Return to heat and let simmer for 6 to 8 minutes.

  5. Pour the mixture into a basin.

  6. Add sugar, butter, and store-flavoring or lemon rind.

  7. Mix in crushed ratifias for added flavor.

Assemble and serve

  1. Prepare small vols-au-vents as directed.

  2. Ice the edges of the vols-au-vents with sugar.

  3. Melt the edges with a heated shovel.

  4. Fill the vols-au-vents with the prepared cream.

  5. Serve immediately.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cream
Provides richness and moisture, forming the body of the filling.
Egg yolks
Their proteins set during gentle heating, thickening and enriching the cream.
Flour
Its starch swells with heat, helping the cream become thick.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture and mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the cream.
Ratifias
Crushed almond macaroons add almond aroma and a slight texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Stir over a gentle fire until thick. Flour starch and egg yolk proteins thicken the cream as they heat. Too much heat can scorch the base or curdle the yolks, leaving a grainy, lumpy filling, so keep the heat low and stir constantly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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