db: vols au vent

September 27th, 2009

“The September 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan”

I was unfathomably (almost embarrassingly) excited about my second daring baker’s challenge. Possibly more excited, even, than I was about the first. I’d been trying to talk myself into making puff pastry for a while now – and this challenge? Well it was just the kick in the behind that I needed.

strawberry mousse vols au vent

I was so inspired, in fact, that I ended up doing even more than was asked of me. Having completed the pastry with no dramas (unlike the last challenge – oh. my. goodness!) I decided to push myself just that little bit further and created a little strawberry and mandarin tasting plate, complete with my first batch of macarons and my summery strawberry & mandarin mousse.

a strawberry tasting plate: puff pastry star with mandarin glaze, strawberry & mandarin macaron, strawberry mousse vols au vent

I plated the lot of it on a strawberry glaze with a bitter mandarin sauce and left it in the piano room for the family to look at while I went to chop up some fresh strawberries to top their mousse with.

I came back to a largely empty plate.

“We saved some of the biscuit thing for you!” they exclaimed, guilty smiles on their faces.

“I ate the star!” said the sister, not at all guiltily.

savory vols au vent

The next evening, we had the remaining vols au vent for dinner, with a cream cheese, smoked salmon and cucumber and tomato salad-esque filling.

And later still, as we sat in the piano room, over the macarons and cups of strong, black tea, the family said “We like your cooking!” and “What are you making next time?” and “Can I use the rest of your pastry to make a pie?” and “Can you use the rest of your pastry to make a pie?”

It’s times like these, I love being a foodblogger.

The following recipe is courtesy Steph of a Whisk & a Spoon (who is linked on my blogroll because I love her baking prowress!)

Michel Richard’s Puff Pastry Dough

From: Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan
Yield: 2-1/2 pounds dough

Steph’s note: This recipe makes more than you will need for the quantity of vols-au-vent stated above. While I encourage you to make the full recipe of puff pastry, as extra dough freezes well, you can halve it successfully if you’d rather not have much leftover.

There is a wonderful on-line video from the PBS show “Baking with Julia” that accompanies the book. In it, Michel Richard and Julia Child demonstrate making puff pastry dough (although they go on to use it in other applications). They do seem to give slightly different ingredient measurements verbally than the ones in the book…I listed the recipe as it appears printed in the book. http://video.pbs.org/video/1174110297/search/Pastry

this is how much butter is in one recipe

Ingredients:
2-1/2 cups (12.2 oz/ 354 g) unbleached all-purpose flour
1-1/4 cups (5.0 oz/ 142 g) cake flour
1 tbsp. salt (you can cut this by half for a less salty dough or for sweet preparations)
1-1/4 cups (10 fl oz/ 300 ml) ice water
1 pound (16 oz/ 454 g) very cold unsalted butter

plus extra flour for dusting work surface

Mixing the Dough:

Check the capacity of your food processor before you start. If it cannot hold the full quantity of ingredients, make the dough into two batches and combine them.

Put the all-purpose flour, cake flour, and salt in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade and pulse a couple of times just to mix. Add the water all at once, pulsing until the dough forms a ball on the blade. The dough will be very moist and pliable and will hold together when squeezed between your fingers. (Actually, it will feel like Play-Doh.)

slicing up the dough

Remove the dough from the machine, form it into a ball, with a small sharp knife, slash the top in a tic-tac-toe pattern. Wrap the dough in a damp towel and refrigerate for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the butter between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and beat it with a rolling pin until it flattens into a square that’s about 1″ thick. Take care that the butter remains cool and firm: if it has softened or become oily, chill it before continuing.

Incorporating the Butter:

butter block and dough

Unwrap the dough and place it on a work surface dusted with all-purpose flour (A cool piece of marble is the ideal surface for puff pastry) with your rolling pin (preferably a French rolling pin without handles), press on the dough to flatten it and then roll it into a 10″ square. Keep the top and bottom of the dough well floured to prevent sticking and lift the dough and move it around frequently. Starting from the center of the square, roll out over each corner to create a thick center pad with “ears,” or flaps.

Place the cold butter in the middle of the dough and fold the ears over the butter, stretching them as needed so that they overlap slightly and encase the butter completely. (If you have to stretch the dough, stretch it from all over; don’t just pull the ends) you should now have a package that is 8″ square.

To make great puff pastry, it is important to keep the dough cold at all times. There are specified times for chilling the dough, but if your room is warm, or you work slowly, or you find that for no particular reason the butter starts to ooze out of the pastry, cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate it . You can stop at any point in the process and continue at your convenience or when the dough is properly chilled.

Making the Turns:

look at those layers!

Gently but firmly press the rolling pin against the top and bottom edges of the square (this will help keep it square). Then, keeping the work surface and the top of the dough well floured to prevent sticking, roll the dough into a rectangle that is three times as long as the square you started with, about 24″ (don’t worry about the width of the rectangle: if you get the 24″, everything else will work itself out.) With this first roll, it is particularly important that the butter be rolled evenly along the length and width of the rectangle; check when you start rolling that the butter is moving along well, and roll a bit harder or more evenly, if necessary, to get a smooth, even dough-butter sandwich (use your arm-strength!).

With a pastry brush, brush off the excess flour from the top of the dough, and fold the rectangle up from the bottom and down from the top in thirds, like a business letter, brushing off the excess flour. You have completed one turn.

Rotate the dough so that the closed fold is to your left, like the spine of a book. Repeat the rolling and folding process, rolling the dough to a length of 24″ and then folding it in thirds. This is the second turn.

Chilling the Dough:

keeping the counter cool between rolls

If the dough is still cool and no butter is oozing out, you can give the dough another two turns now. If the condition of the dough is iffy, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes. Each time you refrigerate the dough, mark the number of turns you’ve completed by indenting the dough with your fingertips. It is best to refrigerate the dough for 30 to 60 minutes between each set of two turns.

The total number of turns needed is six. If you prefer, you can give the dough just four turns now, chill it overnight, and do the last two turns the next day. Puff pastry is extremely flexible in this regard. However, no matter how you arrange your schedule, you should plan to chill the dough for at least an hour before cutting or shaping it.

cutting and shaping - perhaps the most difficult part!

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23 bites more on “db: vols au vent”

1 Karen says on September 27th, 2009 at 3:41 am :

I love all the different shapes and is that a star vol-au-vent I see? Too cute!
2 linda says on September 27th, 2009 at 7:36 am :

oh wowsers.. your photos, including the step by step looks pro.. I love love love your sweet one!!!!
3 Ellie says on September 27th, 2009 at 9:13 am :

Love your pink sweet vol-au-vent! Love how you put the whole strawberry upside down. lol!!
4 Steph says on September 27th, 2009 at 11:40 am :

Ahhh I did notice the strawberry theme in some of your recent posts, it all makes sense now! That is fabulous. The ice cube trays cooling the counter is ingenious!
5 jo says on September 27th, 2009 at 8:35 pm :

Great job on your 2nd challenge and it is not easy to tackle puff pastry. But you did good with both filings.
6 FFichiban says on September 27th, 2009 at 8:47 pm :

Hee hee Bean is funny and zomg that butter shot! Great creations ^^!
7 shaz says on September 27th, 2009 at 9:48 pm :

Well done! As if puff pastry wasn’t challenging enough – very impressive
8 wic says on September 27th, 2009 at 11:13 pm :

What lovely and tasty looking pictures. I love what you did with this challenge.
9 Jenni says on September 27th, 2009 at 11:40 pm :

Great job! Your photographs are fantastic! Your puff pastry looks perfect! Isn’t being a Daring Baker so fun?!
10 lex says on September 28th, 2009 at 1:53 am :

it has to be said. The strawberry vols au vent looks like a nipple.
11 Lauren says on September 28th, 2009 at 3:31 am :

Gorgeous! Your photos are stunning, and the mousse sounds delicious =D.
12 Amy I. says on September 28th, 2009 at 5:30 am :

Oh my goodness, your photos are beautiful, and I’m so impressed that you did macarons as well! Gorgeous work!
13 Frenchie says on September 28th, 2009 at 3:14 pm :

That is dedication, puff pastry and macarons, I am very impressed. Your method of keeping the counter cold is brilliant, I will have to remember that one next time. Great job on your second challenge!
14 Anita says on September 28th, 2009 at 7:29 pm :

I love the strawberry and mandarin tasting plate – it’s so creative and looks gorgeous – great job!
15 E.Lee says on September 28th, 2009 at 11:39 pm :

Wowza! You certainly went overboard, in a totally yummy way! I can’t imagine how long it took you to complete all the elements of your strawberry citrus tasting plate, but I’m sure it was worth it. Beautiful work.
16 Carter @ The Kitchenette says on September 29th, 2009 at 6:56 am :

I also kept my counter cool by using giant plastic bags filled with ice. Great minds think alike…

Love your pastry plate! So chic!
17 betty says on October 1st, 2009 at 4:40 pm :

i love your tasting plate Shez its beautiful
18 Ramya Kiran says on October 2nd, 2009 at 12:09 am :

wow, lovely pastries. They look delicious! Well done.
19 Simon says on October 2nd, 2009 at 4:22 am :

Oh, nice work with this post. The presentation looks so yummy and it looks like you put a lot of effort into this post. Especially love the composition of the pastry and brush photo!

Would you see yourself making homemade puff pastry over store bought?
20 Kimberly says on October 2nd, 2009 at 6:09 am :

Beautiful job!
21 Y says on October 4th, 2009 at 11:06 pm :

Thanks for sharing that picture of all the butter Your dessert looks very tasty, by the way!
22 jo says on October 6th, 2009 at 8:42 pm :

I love the effort you put into your strawberry mousse vols au vent – well done! I must say it is a very inspiring post
23 Audax Artifex says on October 8th, 2009 at 1:22 am :

What a great baker you are maracons and puff pastry with such great results!!!!! The puff pastry looks perfect well done and nice idea about the ice in the pans on the counter. Strawberry filling sounds delicious. Cheers from Audax in Australia