This recipe for canelés is a great weekend baking project. Canelés are a delectable French recipe that you won’t find in many American bakeries. They are delicious when served with a cup of coffee and can make any occasion feel special. In fact, they are best eaten fresh the day they are made, which is why they are even better when made at home.
Their caramelized exterior provides a delicious sugary crunch against their soft, custardy interior. These two textures, combined with their vanilla and rum flavors, make for a taste sensation worth achieving!
For another wonderful French dessert that goes perfectly with coffee, try my Financier Recipe or my Foolproof Madeleines.
There are lots of choices for canelé molds out there, and everyone has their favorites. But for this recipe, I found there was a clear winner!
Let’s Review the options:
Copper: The Traditional Mold
They are perfectly lovely, but I found they were too inconsistent!
They didn’t always create that beautiful crusty exterior so closely associated with a traditional canelé.
They are also expensive! My copper molds were $50 for a set of four. This was the cheapest I could find! Some were as much as $60 a piece?!
I also found they were really hard to clean! So, NEXT…!
Silicon Molds: The Promise of Easy Release Has Its Price
While this looks like a great idea in theory, in reality, it was a no-go for me.
I found they never created a crusty exterior.
They were all squishy to the touch
They didn’t achieve the caramelized, crunchy exterior.
They even bent when I tried to slice them open….NEXT!
The Carbon Steel Pan: The Clear Winner!
This was the one pan that created that glorious, crusty exterior, which was a non-stick, carbon steel pan
It also created nicely shaped canelés that were beautifully caramelized on the outside but delicately custardy on the inside
It also releases easily. It was like magic!
It creates a wonderful hard shell that is beautiful and shiny, just like the traditional caneles you see in the windows of Bordeaux bakeries.
This is the pan that I use that works the best! (This link goes to Amazon where I am compensated on products sold at no cost to the consumer)
And you can make a batch of 12 easily! It’s the quantity that this recipe makes.
What Happens If You Don’t Rest the Batter?
Well, then you’ll have more of a “popover” effect.
The batter is not dense enough at this stage to form a proper canelé since the gluten in the flour hasn’t had a chance to develop.
The result will be really weird, misshapen Canelés that look like this. Tasty, but strange!
