A Feast For Canelé

So I know I have been slacking lately but it has been for good reason.  My beautiful wife and I are eating a more plant based diet due to her having a weight loss challenge at work.  So I am a trying to be a very supportive husband and trying to help her eat better.  I will also be posting some of the better juice recipes we have been enjoying.  We decided to change one of our meals with juice and it just works out that dinner is the best meal for us to change out for juice.  So on to this weeks recipe challenge for myself.  I am a fan of trying out my recipes on friends and family.  I had a great opportunity this week to do this.  I decided I wanted to make a dessert or should I say desserts.  I made two different french style desserts.  I don't know how many people I have told this to but if I had money now I would try starting my own bakery that offers desserts that I have not seen around the area.  A great example of what I would like to offer to the people of the Brillion, Chilton, and Appleton area are these little flavor packed cakes.

Canelé are a french pastry with a soft custard like interior and a exterior that reminds me of charred sugar on the out side of egg custards. I know the pictures look like the cakes are burnt however they are made to look this way.  These little cakes are flavor packed. I made my version of Canelé with really good Mexican Vanilla and Captain Morgans 1671.  The captain Morgan being a specialty bottle may affect my future representation of these cakes.   Several people at the party seem to pull a different flavor profile out of the same cake.  One person who enjoyed them said that she tasted banana when eating them. Another thought that it was more like vanilla custard.  I attribute this to the Captain Morgans imparting a flavor into the cake.  All of these were gone when we left the party.

By the way I am rereading some Song of Ice and Fire books and that is where my title came from.

Here is the recipe I used for canelé

2 cups of milk 

50 grams of butter 

3 tsps of vanilla extract ( I personally like the Posa brand out of mexico called pure vanilla because it is clear and doesn't change the color of my cookies and cakes)

100 grams of plain flour

250 grams of icing sugar(confectioners sugar)

1 tsp of salt

2 whole eggs

2 egg yolks

1/4 cup of rum.

So first thing is to add milk and butter to melt the butter and heat the milk.  I also added the vanilla at this point to concentrate its flavor.

In a separate bowl mix together the icing sugar salt and flour till it looks like this.

After mixing flour and sugar add the eggs at this point and mix then add the hot milk mixture and whisk but try not to mix vigorously otherwise you will make souffles.  When you finish mixing I put this through a fine mesh strainer to get rid of all the lumps out of my batter.  When cool add rum and refrigerate for 24-48 hours.  when you bake these you want to use a small silicone pan almost like a cupcake pan or a canelé pan if you can get one.  Preheat oven to 460 degrees F heat the silicone pan on a baking pan for 4 minutes then fill the molds (don't grease the pan or you won't get the rise you want). Bake for 15 minutes, then turn down the oven to 375 degrees then continue to bake for 1hour.  You are looking for a cake that almost looks to dark.  DON'T worry they may look to dark but they are delicious and crunchy outside creamy inside.

Once they come out of the oven remove from the pan. this is due to the high amount of sugar in the batter will cause the cakes to become stuck after they cool.  Trust me clean up is easier if you remove them right away.