Canelé
A canelé is an exercise in two extremes at once. The shell should be dark to the edge of burnt, almost black and hard as caramel, while the inside is moist, riddled with holes, closer to custard than cake. You get there with a very thin batter that has to rest a full day in the fridge, and an oven temperature that looks like a mistake.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Batter 25 min
- Resting 1440 min
- Preparing the moulds 20 min
- Baking 70 min
- Cooling 60 min
Step by step
0 / 9 doneInfuse the milk with vanilla and butter
Bring the milk to a boil with the butter, the split pod and its scraped seeds, take it off the heat and leave covered for 15 minutes. Vanilla is the only flavouring here besides rum — use a pod, not extract.
Ingredients: 500 ml milk · 50 g butter · 1 pcs vanilla pod · 250 g sugar · 130 g plain flour · 2 pcs eggs · 50 ml rum · 1 pinch salt
Mix the dry ingredients with the eggs
Combine the flour, sugar and salt, add the eggs and yolks and mix with a whisk but without beating. Air worked into the batter forms large bubbles in the oven that push the canelé apart from inside and wreck the texture.
Ingredients: 500 ml milk · 50 g butter · 1 pcs vanilla pod · 250 g sugar · 130 g plain flour · 2 pcs eggs · 50 ml rum · 1 pinch salt
Combine with the warm milk and strain
Pour in the warm milk slowly, whisking, add the rum and strain everything through a fine sieve. The batter has the consistency of thin cream — far looser than instinct suggests, and that is correct.
Ingredients: 500 ml milk · 50 g butter · 1 pcs vanilla pod · 250 g sugar · 130 g plain flour · 2 pcs eggs · 50 ml rum · 1 pinch salt
Thin as pouring cream, passed through a sieve.Rest a full day in the fridge
Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours, 12 at the very least. This is not a cosmetic recommendation: the gluten has to relax completely and the starch to hydrate. Baked straight away, the batter rises unevenly and pushes its centre over the rim.
Ingredients: 500 ml milk · 50 g butter · 1 pcs vanilla pod · 250 g sugar · 130 g plain flour · 2 pcs eggs · 50 ml rum · 1 pinch salt
Coat the moulds with wax and butter
Warm the canelé moulds (classic ones are about 5.5 cm across). Melt the clarified butter — if you have food-grade beeswax, melt it with the butter in equal parts. Pour a little into a hot mould, swirl to coat the walls and tip the excess out. What remains is a microscopic film that gives the lacquered, crisp shell. Freeze the moulds for 15 minutes.
Ingredients: 30 g butter
A thin film on the walls, the excess poured back.Fill the moulds three quarters full
Stir the batter (it has settled and separated — that is normal) and fill the moulds to three quarters. Leave headroom: a canelé climbs during the first phase of baking and only then sinks back. The batter fills about 18 standard moulds — if you have fewer, bake in batches and keep the rest of the batter in the fridge meanwhile.
Ingredients: 500 ml milk · 50 g butter · 1 pcs vanilla pod · 250 g sugar · 130 g plain flour · 2 pcs eggs · 50 ml rum · 1 pinch salt
Bake 15 minutes at 240°C
Set them on a preheated tray in an oven at 240°C and bake 15 minutes without opening the door. That temperature looks like an error, but it is what builds the shell before the centre can set.
Ingredients: 500 ml milk · 50 g butter · 1 pcs vanilla pod · 250 g sugar · 130 g plain flour · 2 pcs eggs · 50 ml rum · 1 pinch salt
Drop to 180°C for another 55 minutes
Reduce to 180°C and bake a further 55 minutes, until the canelés are deep brown, almost black. A pale canelé is an underbaked one — the centre will be raw and gluey. Trust the colour, not the clock.
Ingredients: 500 ml milk · 50 g butter · 1 pcs vanilla pod · 250 g sugar · 130 g plain flour · 2 pcs eggs · 50 ml rum · 1 pinch salt
The colour of dark mahogany — paler means underbaked.Turn out at once and cool on a rack
Turn them out immediately and cool on a rack. In a cooling mould the steam quickly softens the shell and the whole effect is lost. Serve after about an hour, once the shell has hardened.
Ingredients: 500 ml milk · 50 g butter · 1 pcs vanilla pod · 250 g sugar · 130 g plain flour · 2 pcs eggs · 50 ml rum · 1 pinch salt
Dark shell, an interior riddled with holes.
Before you start
Copper moulds versus silicone
Copper gives the darkest, crispest shell and is worth the cost if you make canelés regularly. Silicone works, but the shell is thinner and paler — raise the second phase to 190°C to compensate.
Without beeswax
Clarified butter alone is enough, though the shell is less lacquered. Do not use ordinary butter — the milk solids scorch at 240°C and leave a bitter film on the walls.
A short life
Canelés are at their best within a few hours of baking, once the shell has hardened. After that it softens from the moisture inside. This cannot be stopped or reversed — which is why they are baked for the day they are eaten.
