Confiletas Pastry Cases: Which Shell Suits Which Canape
By Jodie Smith, Product & Hamper Manager at The Gourmet Pantry.
We stock five Confiletas tart and pastry shells, all $9.95 a pack and all baked ready to fill. Choose on two things, size and filling: 37mm savoury minis for one-bite canapés, 40mm sweet minis for curd and fruit, 55mm medium sweet cases for dessert, and vol-au-vent shells, mini or large, for anything with a sauce in it.
Confiletas is a Spanish maker, and the Confiletas range is the least glamorous thing on our shelves. Nobody puts a pastry case on a Christmas list. The shells are pre-baked, shelf stable and keep for months, which is why the savoury ones move through the entertaining season while the sweet ones sell steadily all year to people making dessert on a Tuesday. This is the buying guide rather than the recipe: which shell, how many packs, what stops the base going soft.
The five shells, side by side
Diameter is on the pack and it is the fastest way to choose. Every size is $9.95, so the only difference in cost per piece is the pack count: about 83c a shell in the 12-packs, about $1.66 in the 6-packs.
| Shell | Size | Pack | What it holds best |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mini Savoury Round Pastry Cases | 37mm | 12 | One-bite savoury canapés: whipped cheese, smoked fish, pâté, relish. |
| Mini Vol Au Vent Pastry Shells | 38mm | 12 | Anything loose or saucy: prawn, poached chicken, creamed mushroom. |
| Mini Sweet Round Pastry Cases | 40mm | 12 | Curd, ganache, custard, a single berry on top. |
| Medium Sweet Round Pastry Cases | 55mm | 6 | A two-bite dessert tart: cream and sliced fruit, or lemon curd and a blackberry. |
| Large Vol Au Vent Pastry Shells | 75mm | 6 | A plated entrée: seafood in a cream sauce, mushrooms, curried egg. |
Read pack counts off the product name. The two biggest cases come six to a pack, the three minis twelve, which catches people out when they order for a crowd.
Sweet or savoury, flat or vol-au-vent
Two decisions, in that order.
Sweet or savoury. The savoury case is a short, neutral pastry that takes salt, cream cheese and smoked fish without arguing with them. The sweet case is lightly sweetened and behaves like a biscuit, which is what you want under curd and fruit and very much not what you want under a prawn. The two mini rounds sit 3mm apart in diameter, so on a bench they look interchangeable. They are not. If you are buying one pack of each, mark the boxes.
Flat or vol-au-vent. The round cases are flat-bottomed and open, easy to fill neatly and easy to eat standing up with a glass in the other hand. The vol-au-vents are puff pastry with a well pressed into the middle, so at the same width they hold about twice as much and they hold it in place. Anything with sauce, anything that will slide, anything served warm goes in a vol-au-vent. They take a hot oven without slumping, so a filled savoury shell can go in for a few minutes.
How many packs you actually need
Start with people, not packs. For drinks before dinner, plan four to six pieces a head over an hour. If canapés are the meal and guests stay two or three hours, go to 10 to 12 a head across five or six different items.
Then convert. Twenty guests, drinks only, tartlets as one item among five: a bit over 20 tartlets, so two 12-packs of the mini savoury cases. Same twenty guests with canapés as the meal, tartlets in two versions across the night: four packs. Where the large shells are a sit-down entrée, it is one a head, so two packs of the Large Vol Au Vent Shells cover twelve.
Buy one pack more than the sum says. Shells crack when you fill them, usually the last two, usually while someone is watching. The spare costs $9.95 and keeps in the cupboard until next time. Shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100, which is worth knowing if you are already ordering the rest of the festive entertaining range.
Fillings that hold, and how to stop a soggy base
A pastry case goes soft from the inside. Moisture in the filling moves into the pastry and softens the base from the middle out, and once it starts you cannot reverse it. Fat is what stops it: a fatty layer sits between the wet thing and the pastry.
So build in two layers. Savoury: a base of whipped cream cheese, goat's curd, thick pâté or a butter-based mousse, then the wet element spooned on at the last minute. A teaspoon of Belazu caramelised onion over cream cheese with a shard of cheddar takes about 30 seconds a shell, and black olive tapenade does the same job with more salt behind it. Sweet: brush the inside with melted chocolate, let it set for ten minutes, then add the wet filling. Chocolate is waterproof and buys you a few hours instead of one. Borgo pistachio cream in a chocolate-lined mini sweet case with a raspberry on top is a dessert that needs no oven.
Timing does the rest. Keep the shells sealed in their pack until the day, because an open pack in a humid kitchen softens within hours, and fill within the hour of serving. If they have lost their snap, three minutes at 150°C on a dry tray brings it back; cool them completely before anything goes in, or the filling will slump into a warm shell. Our recipe for smoked salmon tartlets runs the method through end to end.
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Questions about Confiletas pastry cases
What is a vol-au-vent pastry?
A vol-au-vent is a puff pastry case with a hollow well in the middle, made to be filled after baking. The name is French and translates roughly as flight in the wind, which is fair for how light the pastry is. Ours arrive baked and hollowed in two sizes: 38mm for one-bite canapés and 75mm for an entrée.
How do I fill mini tart shells without them going soggy?
Line the shell with something fatty first. Cream cheese, curd or set chocolate keeps the wet part of the filling off the pastry. Fill within an hour of serving, and if you are travelling with them, carry shells and filling separately and assemble on arrival. Five minutes of work, and it is the difference between crisp and limp.
How many canapés do I need per person?
Four to six pieces a head for drinks before dinner over an hour. Ten to twelve a head when canapés are the meal, across five or six items. Tartlets count as one item in that spread, so a 12-pack covers about a dozen guests when there is other food on the table.
Can you buy ready-made tart cases in Australia?
Yes. Ready-made shells turn up in supermarkets around Christmas and are harder to track down the rest of the year, which is why people go looking online. We range all five Confiletas sizes at $9.95 a pack, dispatched the same day on weekday orders placed before 12pm from our packing room in Corio, Victoria.
Buy them before you need them. These keep in a sealed pack for months, so there is nothing to gain by leaving the order until December. Australia Post confirms its Christmas cutoffs in October and interstate parcels close earlier than local ones, so treat mid December as the practical limit for anything that has to arrive before the day.
All five sizes sit together in our tart and pastry shells, and the festive entertaining range is where the crackers, biscuits and condiments that go around them live. If you would rather the whole thing arrived packed, our Christmas hampers are hand-packed in Corio with the sweet and savoury layers already sorted.