CANELÉ: AN EASY AND FOOLPROOF RECIPE
Notes: Canelés are pillowy, fluted, custard cakes from the Bordeaux region of France that taste lightly sweet with a hint of rum and vanilla and possess a beautiful, crisp, caramelized exterior. One person could easily eat a dozen in a sitting because they are that delectable and easy to eat. Traditionally, canelés are baked in copper molds, which are expensive. Copper is an excellent conductor of heat, but we know use of copper is not required as you can get essentially the same result (custard interior and dark, crisp exterior) using much cheaper carbon steel molds, which I decided to use in my recipe to make it accessible.
Canelés are considered a fussy and challenging dessert because of the two most common problems that can occur during baking: 1) They mushroom out of the molds, and 2) They burn. I have developed a recipe that gets around both of these issues and does not require caution and stress when it comes to mixing the ingredients together and introducing “too much air”, which pretty much all recipes say you should try to avoid. The magic comes with using physical force to stop the mushrooming in its tracks (as illustrated in my recipe video) and using one constant, and importantly, not too hot temperature to bake them. As you will see you can get that beautiful, dark, crisp caramelized exterior without fear of burning using one constant lower temperature.
I also have copper molds and I’ve observed that the mushrooming issue happens much less with copper than carbon steel. The reason for this is that since copper is such an excellent conductor of heat the interior of the canelés and exterior are not at two dramatically different temperatures, as they can be with carbon steel. When the exterior starts to set well before the interior, that is where you can get that mushrooming issue. I will also say that I found the recommendation to start your oven at 500 or 550 F and drop it down to 375 of 350F after a short period to also be a great source of problems and totally unnecessary. Using a “very hot to less hot” temperature gradient also contributes to easily burning them and causing mushrooming.
Another fussy thing about canelés is that they are traditionally made with a beeswax/butter coating to make them shiny and help them slip out of the molds. I did not want to purchase beeswax because I think it’s unnecessary, it can often be unethically sourced, and people making them at home don’t want to bother and sometimes just use butter, but they won’t be as shiny. To try to mimic that shine of traditional canelé I decided to use a mixture of pure cocoa butter and butter. Pure cocoa butter is quite solid at room temperature, and although it has a lower melting point than beeswax, it has a higher melting point than butter so I figured it could be a good substitute for beeswax and potentially yield some shine and indeed it does. Cocoa butter also tastes better than beeswax as it still has that sweet cocoa aroma, while beeswax has essentially no taste. You certainly won’t taste the difference at all in the end, but I imagine that it is additive to the flavor and fragrance, like a background note.
The last thing I want to say about canelé is that you will see pretty much all recipes telling you to rest the batter in the fridge for 1-4 days to “develop the flavor”. I have also found this to be unnecessary. Personally, I have not noticed a difference in taste between batter chilled for an hour or two vs. 4 days. If there is a difference in flavor it is so slight as to not be worth the time waiting in my humble opinion. When the recipe for canelé was first developed (somewhere between the 15th to 18th century) there were no refrigerators so I’m not sure where this ‘resting for days’ concept came from unless they were developed in the winter and someone left them out in the cold and thought that was the way to go. Ideally, test it for yourself and see if you think there is a difference in flavor with batter rested and chilled for 1-2 hours vs. 1-4 days and let me know. You can easily try this by baking some of the canelés at the couple hour mark and saving the rest of the batter for a few days to compare.
As usual, ingredients were weighed in grams (where noted) and if you don’t already have one then absolutely get a digital kitchen scale for this recipe and all your future baking.
Makes about 18 canelés if you use the same mold as I did.
Prep time: 30 mins, Rest time: 1-2 hrs up to 1-4 days, Bake time 45-50 mins
Special Equipment:
Digital kitchen scale. This is an excellent one as it’s relatively accurate at weights below 100 g and a good price, and the same one I use: OXO Good Grips 11-Pound Stainless Steel Food Scale with Pull-Out Display
Canelé molds. I highly recommend trying the same carbon steel mold I used. It’s nonstick, easy to clean, and a reasonable price at ~$23: The Love 12-Cavity Nonstick Canele Mold Baking Cake Pan for Bread Muffin Cake Baking Pan, Gold
Hand electric mixer
Basting brush
Large fine mesh sieve (optional)
Ingredients:
Batter:
2 vanilla beans (ideally Madagascan)
*You can sub vanilla bean paste, but you’ll have to use a lot (~ 2 tbsp) since it’s not as concentrated as vanilla beans scraped out of pods.
500 ml milk
200 g powdered (confectioner's) sugar
*Some recipes call for granulated sugar, but powdered sugar will dissolve more quickly.
105 g AP flour
50 g butter (melted)
2 eggs (large) + 2 egg yolks
1/4 tsp salt
50 ml rum (preferably dark rum)
Coating:
20 g pure cocoa butter (to help get that shine on the outside). This is the exact cocoa butter I used: Raw Organic Unrefined Cocoa Butter from Peru - Moisturizer for Hair, Skin & DIY Lip Balm
Yes, it’s a lot of cocoa butter at one pound, but, it’s organic, and cocoa butter can be used for so many things, including making many more batches of canelé.
30 g butter
Directions:
Slit the vanilla beans lengthwise, and scrape the seeds out with with a small knife then place the seeds, vanilla pods, and milk in a saucepan, and bring them to a gentle simmer, and then turn off the heat and let sit for 2 mins.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, salt, and eggs + egg yolks with a hand electric mixer. Add melted butter and whisk more until combined.
Remove the pods from the milk. Add ~1/3 of the hot milk into the egg mixture to temper it and mix well. Add flour and continue mixing until combined. Then slowly add the remaining milk while continuing to mix until everything is smooth and incorporated.
Add rum and mix.
Cover and refrigerate for anywhere from a couple of hours up to 4 days.
When you’re ready to use the batter, preheat your oven to 375 F.
For that smooth shiny surface traditionally a mixture of melted beeswax and butter are used. I’m subbing pure cocoa butter for beeswax. First melt the cocoa butter in the microwave using several 30 second bursts, then add the butter and melt that in, which will probably only take one additional 30 second burst. Swirl the butters together after they’re melted and coat your molds using a brush.
Place the canelé mold in the freezer for a few mins which will re-solidify the cocoa butter/butter.
Optionally, use a fine mesh sieve to remove any large bits of curdled egg and foam from the batter. The final result will not be much different if you decide to not use a sieve (some think it makes the final result more silky). Briefly whisk the batter again before portioning into the molds using a 1/4 cup measure. You want to leave about 1 cm of distance between the batter and the top of the molds.
Place the canelés in your 375 F oven. Let them bake for about 12 mins and check on them.
The magical process of preventing mushrooming is using force. A lot of recipes will say to not even open the oven door for the first 30 mins, lol, wrong I say! You will likely see mushrooming, especially with carbon steel molds. Pull them out of the oven and gently bang them on your counter to get the batter to partially collapse back down. Place them back in the oven and check them again in 5-6 mins. You will likely see mushrooming again and you will repeat the process of gently banging them on the counter. Repeat this process of checking on them and banging them on the counter a couple more times (as needed). Slight mushrooming is ok as that will collapse back down so the goal is not to completely deflate them, but to prevent obvious mushrooming that definitely will not collapse back down on its own before the interiors are set. If you see more than ~1 cm of mushrooming then bang it down. After about 20-25 mins of baking the interiors start to set and you don’t have to worry about the mushrooming anymore.
Continue baking them until you have reached about 40 mins of total baking time. Check on the color by looking at the exposed surface. You want to see that desired dark brown color. I baked mine for 45 mins in total. You can go up to 50 mins if needed, which may be more likely with traditional (i.e., non-convection) ovens.
Canelés must be eaten on the day they are baked if you want to enjoy that crisp exterior. I definitely enjoy the crisp exterior, but I will happily eat any leftovers the next day right out of the fridge.