A long time, eons, an age ago, my mother and I decided to make the iconic canelé pastry. Not for the faint of heart, it’s a worthy challenge for any quarantined baker looking for their next time-consuming project. Multiple steps, speciality cooking gadgets, non-standard pantry items, what’s not to like?
![Canele](https://linandlav.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/DSC06262-1024x683.jpg)
Canelé, if you’ve never had it, or you have but didn’t know what it was or couldn’t pronounce it, is a small French pastry flavored with rum and vanilla with a soft and tender custard center and a dark, thick caramelized crust. It takes the shape of a small, striated cylinder up to five centimeters in height with a depression at the top. That’s from Wikipedia. It’s a very, very particular business down to the desired height of said pastry. And let’s not forget the striations. All this to say, that you will need some of these. Canelé moulds.
![](https://linandlav.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/DSC06056-1024x683.jpg)
You’ll all notice that if you bite into one of these gorgeous confections, it has a crisp and caramelized texture on the outer crust. This is because of the beeswax. Remember when I said non-standard pantry items?
![](https://linandlav.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/DSC06152-1024x683.jpg)
And of course this is a multi-step process with mixing dry ingredients, heating butter and milk in a saucepan, incorporating with dry and wet, adding some rum, painstakingly painting melted beeswax onto moulds, all in a good days work.
![](https://linandlav.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/DSC06250-1024x683.jpg)
And Voila! Canelé.
Full disclosure, I don’t remember which recipe we used but I get the feeling that there is no big secret. The Canelé gods simply require a sacrifice of blood, sweat, and tears. Every recipe looks roughly the same. However, I wouldn’t mind trying this recipe as Food52 hasn’t let me down once yet. For the brave souls who decide to undertake this challenge, God speed.