A nice canele surprise
Its been a while since I baked these delicious morsels and spent a good deal of watching niko triantafillou's super quick video (found here https://www.saveur.com/how-to-make-canele). As a self proclaimed obsessive he already holds tons of credit and then watch his video (kiss fingers mmmma!) Just beautiful. So this time i decided its time to go all the way - vanilla beans instead of extract and gee instead of butter in the beeswax mix. Oh and 36 hours rest instead of 12. There was still a little muffin topping but after a gentle vibrating of the molds around the 20 minute mark they settled and stayed settled. The result - much much better browning of the tops. The hardest part - waiting for them to cool (the smell of vanilla permeates everwhere and i am pavlov's dog right now)
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For some reason my camera just won't focus well on close ups - here's a pic anyway. Sometimes canele crumb can tend to end up like custard and also contain large air pockets especially near the top - so far they are all looking quite nice and its really hard to stop eating !
Kendall, these look superb! Crumb and everything.
How was the flavor after 36 hour rest? Not sure if I mention in the guide but when resting with pods in batter, every 12 hours or so, give a gentle stir (the flour will have gathered on the bottom of the container) also, give the podsa squeese to get all the vanilla that has now been soaked out into the batter.
Hi Niko, glad to see you back and tks the vid is really great watched it very closely and tried to follow suit as much as possible. So as for stirring, even though you didnt mention believe it or not I did this ever so gentle stir roughly every 12 hours as just instinct nagged at me and had me envisioning settled flour. Did not squeeze the been pod however. I should have snapped some progress photos - batter looked identical to yours and I can say for sure the whole bean tastes much better than extract. I would have of course preferred to do a 48+ hour rest but didnt plan ahead well enough. Regardless, I am much happier with the results - what i noticed was a much mkre complex flavor especially the vanilla, better crust and less dense crumb. Still a little pop and hoping to conquer that aspect - with emough reptition these things seem to just happen. Definitely want to try pouring the gee/beeswax but being a bit low on wax had to resort to brushing this time. Bthanks for the response - stay tuned - they will get better !
To your original point on the other post I actually have aluminum molds. They do a much better job than silicone but of course would love to have coppers but the problem is the $$$
I don't remember if you said what kind of molds you are using. Are they the copper or ???? I had canele in NYC and they were OK but too gummy tasting. I have the beeswax and haven't made them as I don't have the molds. There is also a recipe out there in the online world for a bundt cake size canele...get it all over with in one BIG pan !! https://travelerslunchbox.com/2007/02/15/frustration-deprivation-improvisation/ canele colossus
yours look fabulous !
If i can get to a point where I can justify coppers then it makes sense to go full bore. Fyi I have tried a few different mold shapes out of curiosity but find the correct mold makes a big difference and i suspect it has to do with the corrugated suface providing greater crust. I imagine the tin and copper of the authentics even better. That toroidal bundt version might just work out though looks interesting. Yes if they are gummy in the middle they are not anywhere near as enjoyable :\
I am going to try the big one just for fun. I have never read to use ghee...that is interesting. Also in several places I read to brush on the wax/butter coating as otherwise it is very easy to get too much. Since I haven't tried at all will watch the video and take it all under advisement. Thank you for posting your iterations...good to have so much data ! c
Just put in a single loner and so far to my additional surprise - zero muffin topping. Its just simmering away just like in Niko's vid - identical like. So whats different ? Lets see, i had just enough batter left after the morning for one more so it has now rested 48 hours. Straight gee coating (beeswax depleted) and baking directly on the stone this time. Usually I put them on a metal baking sheet on the stone. Who knows which of these made the difference but just fyi to any canele'ers, this is a mini break through (unfortunately no pics as of yet camera battery too low dang it)