A detailed recipe/tutorial for France's most complicated pastry: traditional canelés (cannelés) with dark rum and Tahitian vanilla.
Ingredients
For preparing copper moulds for first use:
Vegetable oil
For the canelé batter:
500g whole milk
1 vanilla bean (or, if necessary, 2 teaspoons of high quality vanilla extract)
50g butter
250g powdered sugar
2 egg yolks
2 eggs
15g dark rum
100g all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
For the white oil:
50g edible beeswax
50g butter
Method
Prepare the copper moulds for first use:
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Wash the copper moulds with warm, soapy water. Rinse and then dry them with a clean cloth.
Thoroughly grease the inside of the moulds with vegetable oil. Place the moulds on a sheet tray and bake for twenty minutes.
Remove from oven and let cool completely before drying with a paper towel.
Prepare the canelé batter:
Pour the milk into a medium saucepan. Split the vanilla bean in half, scraping out the seeds into the milk. Add the vanilla bean itself, as well as the butter, to the saucepan. Bring to a simmer over low heat. Once simmering, remove from heat, cover, and let cool for twenty minutes.
In a large bowl, gently mix together (do not whisk) the powdered sugar, egg yolks, and eggs. Stir in the rum. Sift in the flour and salt, mixing until combined. Always try to incorporate as little air as possible through this process.
Pour in the milk, vanilla, and butter mixture. Lightly stir together. Strain the batter, over a fine-mesh strainer, into a large bowl. This will remove any lumps in the batter.
Transfer the vanilla bean into the bowl with the batter, cover with plastic wrap, and let rest in the fridge for 24-48 hours, as convenient. I find results are best around the 24 hour mark.
Prepare the white oil and coat the moulds:
Place the empty copper moulds on a sheet pan and bake at 400°F (200°C) for a few minutes, until very hot. Using hot moulds ensures that you only get a thin coating of white oil in each one.
Prepare a wire rack, with parchment paper underneath, on your counter or on a sheet pan.
Melt the beeswax (easiest to cut off from a block of it with a hot knife) in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring often. Once liquid, stir in the butter until melted. Skim off and remove the milk solids that will float to the top (optional, unless you are making lots of white oil and wish to keep it for a while). This is your "white oil". If it hardens, just melt again.
Working quickly, remove the sheet pan with all of the moulds from the oven. Fill a mould with white oil, flip over with a pair of kitchen tongs to pour the white oil back into the saucepan, and then place upside down on the wire rack to allow excess oil to drip out onto the parchment. Repeat with remaining moulds.
You should have a very thin coating of white oil in each mould, or else you will end up with a waxy pastry. If there is too much, heat the offending mould upside down on a sheet pan in a hot oven so that the wax melts and drips out. Repeat the previous step.
Store extra white oil in a glass container at room temperature (don't forget to collect the dried drops on the parchment paper). For your next canelé adventure, melt in the microwave.
Put the canelé moulds in the freezer for at least thirty minutes prior to filling and baking.
Bake the canelés:
Place a thick sheet pan in the oven and preheat, on the non-convection setting, to 475°F (245°C).
Once the oven gets to the right temperature, remove the bowl of batter from the fridge and mix thoroughly, but slowly, making sure not to incorporate much air.
Working quickly, remove the canelé moulds from the freezer and fill each one to about 1cm (0.4'') from the top. If you're using traditional 55mm (2'') in diameter moulds, you'll need about 70g of batter for each one and this recipe will make about 12-13. I like to transfer the batter to a measuring cup to pour it into each mould easily.
Remove the sheet pan from the oven, evenly space the moulds out on it, and quickly return to the oven to bake. Immediately lower the temperature to 450°F (230°C) and bake for 15 minutes.
Now, decrease the temperature to 350°F (180°C) and bake for 60 minutes to get a dark mahogany colour or 70-75 minutes for a colour closer to black. Do not bake until they are hard or the base (the part you can see while baking) is fully dark; the shell will become hard as it cools and the base will always be a bit lighter than the rest of the pastry.
Once done, immediately flip the moulds over with a pair of kitchen tongs or gloves and bang on the counter until the canelés fall out. Cool on a wire rack. If you have issues de-moulding one, bake for a couple more minutes and try loosening it with a toothpick around the rim.
Eat once they reach room temperature (about 45 minutes), as at this point the shell will become properly crunchy. They are best consumed within 6 hours since, as time passes, the crust becomes softer and the textural contrast is lost. If eating afterward, heat (without moulds) in a 450°F (230°C) oven for 5 minutes and then let come back to room temperature so the shells harden once more. Note that they are not nearly as good reheated.
Recipe by IronWhisk at http://www.ironwhisk.com/2017/08/caneles-canneles-de-bordeaux/