Rum and vanilla canelés 🍨

Bring the eggs to room temperature

Take the egg and yolks out of the fridge at least 1 hour before. If you are in a hurry, leave them in lukewarm water for 10 minutes: they must not be cold.

Warm the milk and butter

Warm the milk with the butter until the butter has melted. Take it off the heat: the milk must be lukewarm, not hot, or it will cook the eggs. If you use a vanilla pod, split it lengthways, scrape out the seeds and add them to the milk together with the pod while it warms; remove the pod before adding the milk to the eggs.

Make the batter

In a bowl, mix the flour, sugar and salt. In another bowl, crack the egg and yolks and stir them with a spatula, without whisking. Pour the warm milk over the eggs a little at a time, stirring gently, then add everything to the dry ingredients. Add the rum and, if you are using extract, the vanilla. Finally, strain the batter through a sieve: this step matters, because it removes lumps and air bubbles before the rest.

Tip: The less air you add, the better: bubbles make canelés puff up in the oven and bake unevenly.

Rest it in the fridge

Cover the bowl and let the strained batter rest in the fridge for at least 12 hours, up to 48. Resting deepens the flavour and helps the canelés not to puff up too much.

Prepare the moulds and the oven

Brush the mould with soft butter, getting into every groove, and chill it in the fridge until firm. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 220 °C for 20 minutes.

Fill the moulds

Gently stir the batter, which separates a little while resting, and pour it into the cold moulds, filling them only to 70% (about 60 g per cavity).

Tip: If you fill them more, the batter rises out of the mould and the base will not caramelise.

First bake at 220 °C

Put them in the oven and bake at 220 °C for 30 minutes.

Second bake at 180 °C

Lower the oven to 180 °C and bake for another 30 minutes, until the crust is dark and glossy. If the bases look like they are getting too dark, cover them with a sheet of foil.

Take them out

Unmould the canelés while still warm and let them cool on a wire rack: the crust turns crunchy as they cool.