What’s a Vol-Au-Vent?

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Vol-au-vent, which means “to fly in the wind” in French, is a French flaky pastry made by baking rings of pastry so that they form a hollow cylinder when they rise. In most cases, vol-au-vent is served filled with ingredients ranging from savory to sweet but generally contain cream or sit in a cream sauce. Depending on how the pasta is made, it may have a small disk of dough as the bottom, creating a sealed area for the food; it can also have a small piece of dough on top, like a lid, so the inside contents don’t show when served. While the most traditional shape is a cylinder, it’s also possible to create square vol-au-vents and almost any other shape. The size of the pasta can vary from the bite to the type of cup or bowl.

The key to making vol-au-vent is using cold, well-done dough so the dough rings rise evenly and predictably. Pastry dough is a basic flour dough that has a layer of butter rolled like foil in the center of the dough. Once the butter is encased in the sheet of pastry, the sheet is folded and rolled repeatedly while remaining cold, so each fold allows for multiple layers of butter to be spread across the thickness of the pastry. When starting to make rings of dough, it’s crucial that the dough stays cold until the time it’s placed in the oven.

The first step in creating the vol-au-vent is to roll out the chilled pastry into a flat sheet. With a knife or round pastry cutter, circles are then cut out of the dough. It’s important to cut the dough as easily as possible, as twisting or otherwise moving the cutter could cause the various layers of dough to pinch, preventing it from rising. If you want a bottom on the shell, you’ll need to cut two circles for each shell you’ll be creating.

To make the dough rings, the insides of the circles are cut out. The inner circle of the dough can be baked with the rings to form lids for the shells. The vol-au-vent is assembled by first placing a solid circle of dough on a baking sheet and coating it in egg wash. Next, a hollow ring of dough is placed on top of the base. If lids are made, they are cooked separately.

The pan is placed in a kiln and cooked slowly while being constantly monitored to ensure that all the rings are rising evenly and are not burning. Once cooked, the shells can be filled and served immediately. Some savory fillings include spinach and bacon in a cream sauce, salmon or crab in a cream sauce, or roasted onions and vegetables in sour cream. Sweet fillings can include whipped cream and fruit, chocolate ganache or vanilla cream and liqueur.

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