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The quest for Canele – Batch No 6

August 10, 2015Cookingadmin

Things are getting better. Using less liquid provided a flat bottom once again and I removed the egg whites in this recipe. Here is the recipe

Canele Recipe (makes 6.5 Canele)

7/8 cup whole milk
1.5 tbp unsalted good quality butter
1.5 – 2 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup cane sugar
.5 tsp sea salt
2 large egg yolks (or you can use 2 whole eggs)
(if you use the whole egg it will be lighter/less dense)
1/3 cup flour + 1 tsp + 1tbs (95ml)
2 – 2.6 tbs Kahula (yes, this is the secret to my Canele)

Add milk and butter in saucepan
Scald milk, bring to 180-185 degrees (183 degrees)
Add the sugar to the milk & butter mixture and dissolve

Put 2 egg yolks in a small bowl and scramble a little bit
pour over milk mixture slowly to temper eggs

In a bowl combine sugar, salt, & flour
Pour egg mixture over dry ingredients
Blend together in a blender or try to mix out all lumps
(some strain the mixture, this can help, but I don’t usually do this)
Add vanilla & Kahula

Refrigerate for 48 hours
Coat molds with beeswax and butter mixture

Bake

Fill molds to about .5″ below the top
Use lower middle oven rack
preheat oven and dish to 475 then lower to 450 and bake 15-20 min
lower oven to 375 bake 40-45 min (look for the rich deep brown color)

Testing baking in a Le Creuset (I don’t recommend this)

My wife is a great cook and has good taste in cookware. She recently bought a Le Creuset dutch oven. We talked about it and thought would be a good idea to bake the Canele in the dutch oven. These are heavy cast iron pots. The retain heat really well. We figured because of this the cooking temperature would be more consistent. This turned out to be a bit scary I’ll go over the details below.

I preheated oven along with the Dutch oven. Then I placed the molds inside this screaming hot pot with high sides. Just getting close, I could feel the heat radiating from the pot. I couldn’t use tongs to place the molds inside because the silicone with soft sizes and liquid batter would be crushed. I couldn’t use gloves because with them on I didn’t have much dexterity. I had to put them in with my bare hands. I thought several times I was going to burn my arm on the high sides. This was terrifying and I would strongly recommend against it unless you are armor plated. Next time I’ll use my wife’s Le Creset braiser. It has much lower sides.

This batch came out really well, however they didn’t have a very dark crust. The flavor and texture was excellent. One nice thing about cooking in a pot was the ease of taking them in and out of the oven. I could easily grab the handles and take the entire batch out. My new cotton oven gloves were just barely up to the task. I could feel the heat of the 450 degree pot as I lifted it. I know that I couldn’t have held it too long with out temperature rated gloves.

The damn things raised way out of the molds again. Higher then I’ve ever seen them. Here is a photo, it doesn’t show it, but they raised up two or three times higher then the one on the right.

I took this batch out several times to tap and shake them back into their molds. My wife was very enthusiastic about this and helped by using tongs and shaking them side to side. The funny thing was the pot was so hot that they kept rising even after taking them out of the oven. I placed the pot on top of a cutting board and could smell the remnants of the pot cooking onion bits left on the board.

One thing I don’t like about the rising effect the exposure to the oven heat over bakes and burns the edges. For some reason even thought they rose significantly out of the molds somehow the pot protected the edges from burning. There were air pockets in some of them, others were more consistent.

This post is part of a 7 part series on Canele

The quest for Canele – Batch No 5

August 10, 2015Cookingadmin

This batch had a different flavor. The big change in flavor was due to adding Kahlua in lieu of Grand Marnier. In prior recipes I used Grand Marnier, and Rum. This time I used Rum and Kahlua. This is my best tasting batch so far. Here is the recipe.

By using less milk (liquid) the problem of the hole in the bottom of the Canele went away. The bottoms of this batch were flat. (see photo below) In prior posts I attributed the hole to excessive bees wax. I’m still not sure what would happen if I used excessive wax and less liquid. I do no that using too much wax will cause it to pool while baking.

I had two problems with this batch. One they raised out of the molds, and two because they raised out of the molds the bottom edges got burnt. You can see that in this photo. I guess a third problem was a large air pocket that was trapped in the top (bottom while cooking) I believe egg whites cause excessive rising. I will not be using the whites in future recipes.

Can you tell which in the above photo had large air pockets? … There are two in this photo that do, the front right and back left.

Above is the air pocket. The one on the left in the back has the air pocket and the one on the right does not.

I absoutely hate when they rise out of the molds. I don’t like taking them in and out of the oven. Currently I am trying to find a technique that does not cause rising. One thing to note; I did talk to a French bakery. They told me they take them out and “knock” the molds. The woman said she can tell which chef is baking by the sound it makes when they knock them. So, maybe it’s not possible to make them without rising, but I am going to try. I had to take this batch out several times to get them to settle back into the mold.

Here is the recipe I’m using

This post is part of a 7 part series on Canele

The quest for Canele Batch No 4

July 25, 2015Cookingadmin

What did Yoda say? There is no try only do? I have been doing. This post is dedicated to Bridget’s sweet tooth from America’s test kitchen. I hope she sees this is and helps demystifies the science behind this delicious pastry.

I think this was the best recipe, but it was the worst experience I’ve had making them so far. I baked it in a pyrex dish thinking the heat from the dish would help with the baking. This may have worked if it was a heavy metal Le Creuset pan like my wife has, but I think it worked better with a wire rack sitting on a cookie sheet.

This time they came up really high over top of the molds. I let the batter rest 48 hours to try to avoid this. See how they start to get burnt just slightly on the top edges? This is the problem with them rising out, the top edges end up getting over baked. After taking them in and out of the oven 2 or 3 times I gave up. I decided to take a shower and finished baking them when I was done. After the prolonged rest they didn’t rise again, but they didn’t bake properly. The bottom left one had the most beeswax inside the mold and I think that’s why it’s caved in more then the others.

This is what the inside looked like. Because of the baking issues there was large pockets of air inside. I suspect that this pocket of space causes the pastry to rise out of the molds. I also think that the first 15 minutes sets these little pastries.

The next day I had just enough batter to make one Canele. This time I baked on a wire rack above a baking pan. I baked at 460 degrees for 15 min and then lowered to 400 and baked 45 min. Here is the result.

I thought this looked pretty good. and the bottom was flat. However it was over baked and more cake’ey inside then custard’ey. Here is a look at the inside.

Beeswax more is not better. This time I used a super thin coating of beeswax in the molds, and they baked more evenly. I find that too much causes the wax to pool and causes the center cave in.

The above were also noticeably lighter in weight the the others.

Below is a bit of show and tell from the professionals. This is the Canele from Gaby et Jules. They were made in Copper molds. Look at the depth of the pockmarked surface, tons of flavor there.

This is the inside view, It looks amazing! It tasted pretty good too.

This one is from the Little Red Fox in DC. They are made in silicone molds. My wife was kind enough to indulge me with all of these amazing photos. They would be suitable for a cookbook.