Looking for inspiration I ‘walk’ through the menu of the Gastrobar, my eye falls on the canelés, and I love them!
I once got a beautiful book from Santa Claus; ‘Le grand livre de la cuisine Française, recettes de bourgeoises et populares’ by Jean François Piège, a great French chef. A kind of Standard Work, and while leafing through I came to the C and there was my favorite cake / cookie, the canelé.
A crazy thing, kind of a straight hat, crispy on the outside and soft, slightly rum and vanilla flavored, on the inside. The canelé comes from near Bordeaux, consists of eggs, flour, sugar, milk, vanilla and rum and is originally made in small copper moulds*, but I use a kind of sheet pan with 9 (non-stick) holes. Ideal.
I had never made them before and before I had Piège’s book I didn’t know how at all. So now it is! You start with the batter, which according to the recipe must rest in the refrigerator for 24 hours. I have sometimes skipped that rest period, which is not a good idea.
The trick of baking is the perfect balance between crispy (just not burnt) on the outside and a soft heart on the inside. Oh yes…, the Dutchman in me only used 2 vanilla beans the first time, but this is actually such a simple dish and the good chef knows that it is precisely with simple dishes that the quality of the ingredients makes the difference, so take nice 3.
Well, long story short, a child can do the laundry because it is not rocket science. I will never buy a canelé in a store again. I make them myself, or I order them from Ron!
* Those copper molds do it just a little bit better. Because you can place the molds a little more apart, the heat can pass around them better, and the boiling hot copper makes them a little crispier on the outside.
Canelé
3 vanilla beans, scraped out
500 ml of milk
50 grams of butter
100 grams of flour
250 grams of sugar
2 eggs
2 egg yolk
1 tbsp rum
1. Bring vanilla (marrow and scraped beans), milk and butter to a boil and remove from heat.
2. Beat sugar eggs, yolks and rum and thoroughly.
3. Mix the sugar mixture with the warm milk (from which you fished out the scraped beans) and then stir in the flour well.
4. Pass the batter through a sieve and refrigerate for 24 hours (covered plastic wrap, preferably on the surface).
5. Fill buttered canelé molds with the stirred batter and place in a preheated oven at 180ºC (50 minutes for molds ø 3.5 cm, 60 minutes for molds ø 4.5 cm).
Let cool briefly and transfer to a rack.
