Today I’m showing you how to make vol au vent with ready-made puff pastry, a quick base recipe to prepare tasty filled vol au vent with the most imaginative fillings, mainly used as appetizers during Christmas, but they are actually ideal all year round. These homemade puff pastry baskets are made in a few simple steps with just two ingredients: puff pastry and milk (or egg) and with just a few minutes of baking they will be as crispy as the ready-made or frozen vol au vent.
You need to prepare a base of puff pastry cut with a round pastry cutter and stack it with other layers of dough made into rings so that once baked, the vol au vent become nice and puffy and elevated. Shall we prepare them together? In the meantime, I’ll leave you with some other appetizer ideas to make with puff pastry:
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very inexpensive
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 5-6 vol au vent
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Energy 214.95 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 17.60 (g) of which sugars 0.37 (g)
- Proteins 2.89 (g)
- Fat 14.82 (g) of which saturated 2.15 (g)of which unsaturated 11.93 (g)
- Fibers 0.58 (g)
- Sodium 96.98 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 40 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients
- 1 sheet puff pastry (rectangular)
- as needed milk
Tools
- Baking tray
- Pastry cutter
Recipe
To make these vol au vent, I used two round pastry cutters: one with a diameter of 2.36 inches and another smaller one of 1.57 inches.
Unroll the puff pastry and cut out as many circles with a round pastry cutter measuring 2.36 inches as you can, avoiding as much waste as possible. You can get 20 circles on the rectangular pastry (4 on the short side x 5 on the long side). If you wish, you can gather the scraps into a ball, roll it out with a rolling pin and make another vol au vent.
Leave 5 discs whole and make a hole in the center of the other 15 using a smaller cutter of 1.18-1.57 inches.
Line a baking tray with parchment paper and arrange the whole circles, prick them with a fork and brush them with milk (or a beaten egg). Place 3 ring-shaped circles on top of each base, brushing each ring before stacking the next. This not only gives a golden color, but also helps fix the puff pastry together.
Bake in a static oven at 392°F for 10 minutes or until they begin to turn golden. Remove from the oven and once cooled, fill as desired.
Did you see how easy it is to prepare vol au vent at home? It really takes just a little time and a roll of puff pastry to prepare the basic recipe for these small baskets that can be filled with mousse, cheese creams, salmon and shrimp, as well as vegetables and mushrooms. They are also delicious in a sweet version.
When you cut the hole to create the puff pastry rings, you will have many small discs left over that can be reused in countless ways. Here’s my idea, little treats filled with jam. I placed the base of the small circle underneath, filled it with half a teaspoon of jam, closed it with another disc and decorated it with colored sprinkles before baking in the oven.
Storage and Tips
Storage: they remain crispy for 1-2 days. I recommend filling them just before serving.
Tips: to get higher baskets, you can add 1 or 2 more rings than indicated in the recipe.
Instead of milk, you can brush with a beaten egg for a more golden color.
You can use larger or smaller molds based on the desired size.
